Now we are Two
by ooihcnoiwlerh
Summary: Just the story of two fugitives on the run for their lives, finding the lost continent of North America, and what happens when they reach the ruins of D.C. Eventual Graverobber/Shilo, be patient. chapter three slightly edited
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Repo!: the Genetic Opera

Shilo and Graverobber are both tired of the world in which they've lived, and escape to the ruins of DC and from there find what may have eluded them before…OFC/Graverobber/Shilo.

Re-Done because a) I went through a long process of hating everything I churned out and stopped posting anything on fanfiction because the majority of people must have as well and b) when I came back to this I was like, okay, not a bad idea if I only alter a few things. Thus, the writing is more refined and any allusion to the Graverobber's past is eliminated forthwith. Other than 'The First Hit' I have come to loathe and despise any references to the Graverobber's past. If he were supposed to have a back-story, it probably would have been written in the stage play, the screenplay, or both. That being said, I now present to you: Just Sing.

Chapter One

Thirty hours. And it had only taken two to send the world into chaos, and less than twenty-four more to make everyone believe the world had turned safely flat once more.

However, it was the past _thirty _hours, not two or twenty-four or twenty-six, that kept the Graverobber's attention. The now-infamous Opera Night had claimed its sacrificial lamb—Blind Mag—and had taken both the villain and the man who could have been that, hero, or both—the Oedipus, really. The tragic anti-hero. It was his child, though, his Antigone, which concerned him. She had escaped, but to where? And how? Would she live much longer than her father?

No, no he wasn't afraid. Not at all. Of course not. He feared nothing.

He was…_concerned. _The child, this Wallace child, was a product of a lifelong quarantine. She wouldn't last a day on her own until someone found her first, and the result would be worthy of any nightmare he'd ever had. Sweet little thing. Helpless little thing. But brave, he remembered. Perhaps it was her seclusion, her lack of knowledge about the real world that gave her the blessèd stupidity to speak out against the most powerful man in the world. Well, he wasn't anymore, but at the time, there had been nothing more sensational. Who _was _this girl who dared to challenge Rotti Largo? Why was she so important?

"Bullshit, hon. I've known the Graverobber for six years now and I've never seen a little gnome asking for his help before. How old are you anyway? Twelve? You're too damn young for this shit." The Graverobber immediately recognized the voice of one of his customers, one who'd just bought from him. Terel, a part-time transvestite also known as Felicity, who ran the male beauty circuit for GeneCo.

"Please, let me through. He _knows _me, I'm telling you." The other voice was weak and childish, strained and tired to the point that her protest sounded more like a kittenish mewl. He leapt off his post at the lid of his favorite dumpster and strode forward. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. It had been the one he had selfishly wanted to hear more than anything for the past thirty hours, unsure whether she was still alive, fully escaped, or kept hostage in a stockroom at GeneCo headquarters.

She looked so small, her already puny frame shrunk as she closed in around herself to fight off the cold. Her skin looked waxier than smooth, her hair gone, a bald dome left in its stead. Her body covered in her father's dried blood, her dress torn and her shoes discarded, her feet blistered and bleeding. She turned from the man in the tank top and wedges and saw _him_. Before she could say anything he told her, "You look like shit."

"Excuse me?" Terel/Felicity demanded, thinking the Graverobber had addressed him instead. "You're the one who never washes his hair, Mountain Man."

"I know it," Shilo replied, ignoring the man-slash-woman. "I tried to rough it, tried to leave the city, but I just got lost. I found my house, but it's off-limits. There are these electric fences and GeneCops circling the perimeters." Her eyes darted between his eyes and the ground before she mumbled, "You were the first person I could think of."

"Now wait. Just. A. Second." Terel/Felicity interrupted, looking, scandalized, at the Graverobber. "You mean this tiny young thing is your pet woman? You have a little statutory rape victim stashed away? I'm leaving." He tottered away on his ridiculous high wedges.

Shilo averted her eyes, too cold, probably, to even blush. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for people—or you—to, to think—"

The Graverobber interrupted her. "There have been far worse speculations about my sexual preferences. There's no foul. I was wondering if you were alright," he added in an offhand tone of voice, hands in his pockets, and he tilted his head down at her. He wore one of his more easy-going smiles, one that didn't make people back away from him, and waited for her to speak. There were a few suspicions hovering near the back of his mind, but he could swat them away for now. "What brought you here?"

Shilo jerked her head, still not quite looking at him, annoyingly modest and shy as a church mouse. "_Hey_," he said, a little sharply, and she looked at him. "Don't beat around the bush with me. You want something, you ask. I won't hurt you for it. Understand?"

"Okay," she replied. She paused, trying to find the right words. "Weird. I was practicing it all in my head on the way here," she muttered to herself. Finally, she said, slowly and deliberately, choosing her words with great care. "You're the first person I've ever met, the first person I've ever known other than Dad, but he's dead now. He was the only safety net I ever had, so I guess I've really broken the leash, huh?" her mouth twitched upwards for a moment in something resembling a sad, ironic little smile, and he absently returned it, even more half-heartedly. "And you…you're not safe. That definitely isn't the word I'd use. Your work, your personality is nothing close to safe. It's that…you're a _survivor. _ I've seen you cheat death several times, tempt danger and escape unharmed."

The Graverobber considered for a moment telling her, well, no, he didn't _always _escaped unharmed. He had quite a few "war wounds" to prove the contrary. Still, flattered, he listened without interrupting her again.

""I just thought, you know, if you had room anywhere, or time, you could…show me how to survive, I guess. Until I can live on my own. Maybe I'll get out of here, you know?"

"Where do you plan on going?" he asked. Everything West of Sanitarium Isle was broken away, sunk into the ocean. Everything East was unknown territory. He guessed Shilo hadn't known that, but there were a lot of things she hadn't known. Maybe her dad had assumed he could keep her in confinement until one of them died, and she wouldn't have to learn about the world outside her bedroom. As it was, she looked somewhat bewildered at the possibility that there may not be anyplace as so-called civilized as this.

"Anywhere," she said, though. "Anywhere but here. But the thing is, I need help. I need_ your_ help." She struggled for a moment but managed, eventually, to meet his eyes. "Please?" she asked, her voice childlike.

The Graverobber said nothing for a full minute. Admittedly, he wasn't sure what to do. His lived for his autonomy and his independence, not having to deal with a troublesome girlfriend or relative incapable of holding their own bladder. He could only take care of himself, and his ability to do even that was questionable. At the same time, he had honestly worried about her survival, and if she had no one to trust, it would be futile. She'd be dead within days. Life had definitely screwed little Shilo Wallace over, that much was certain. She hadn't brought it all upon herself like the self-pitying scalpel slut unable to make their payments for Zydrate or their latest surgery or both; the people that were supposed to protect her had done enough damage. If there was anyone who deserved their health and their freedom, it was she. But still…

"Graverobber?" Shilo said nervously, wringing at the fabric of her ruined dress.

"I'm still thinking," he said. He looked at her, the woman-child with no hair, no health, and, without guidance, no hope. He sighed. Whatever that hateful thing was called, conscience or the Jiminy Cricket or the angel on his shoulder, he had just enough of it to say, "I'll see what I can do." He winced inwardly. God, what an empty promise, and still just a little more than he could feel comfortable giving her.

She understood this. She'd be a burden, dead weight, for a little while and this was not a patient or parenting man of whom she was asking this favor. "Thank you," she said honestly. She shifted her weight, wincing at the feel of broken skin at the bottom of her feet. There was no way she could comfortably stand. Her heels had been even worse, discarded after two hours of aimless wandering.

The Graverobber had noticed this and gave her shivering, filthy, blood-covered body an appraising look. "You could use a warm shower," he said. "Hell, so could I." He barely gave it another moment's thought. "Come on. I know a place with running water and a bed." He started walking out of the alley before realizing he'd have to slow down for her to keep up. While he was at it, she'd need at least a couple pairs of everything's if the only clothes she had was the now-ruined dress. He stopped by one of his favorite dumpsters—it sat behind one of those repulsive outlet malls. With everything that had been lost in the organ failure epidemic, it was a shame that malls had survived. Still, the perfectly good things that people were stupid enough to throw away were sublime.

"One second," he told her and her wide, questioning eyes shadowed from lack of sleep, and hoisted himself over the top lid, leaping inside with superb grace for someone of his height and stature. From the other side, he called out, "About what size are you?"

"Zero," she told him. "Or Child Large." She wondered, somewhat wearily, what he planned on finding for her.

She heard rustling and banging, then, "What's your opinion on plain black tee shirts?"

"Fine," she said. "I don't need anything fancy."

"That's fantastic, because you won't have any use for 'fancy'." Some more rustling, and she barely heard him mutter. "Briefs? Women wear briefs, too? Low-rise, boy-cut, what the hell is this?" He tossed a plastic package over the top, calling, "How's this?"

Shilo examined the front. It read: a woman's low-rise brief, boy-shorts style, size extra small. The picture looked decent enough, and through the clear plastic she saw the panties were in individual bright summery colors. "'Kay," she said. What a man he was, getting her panties. Maybe he was more patient than she thought.

"Shoe size?" his voice echoed back, but he seemed far enough in the dumpster, a huge monstrosity that made the one at his alley look like a kitchen trash can, that she didn't hear him right the first time.

"_Shoe size_!" he repeated when she asked.

"Five women's!" she called back. Some rustling, and a muffled but more distinct, "Will a size five-and-a-half do?" and she nodded. Then, feeling stupid, said, "Yes!"

He reemerged a few seconds later, vaulting with one arm on the lid, the other holding a small pile of clothes, out of the dumpster and to his feet in the parking lot in front of her. "Enough dawdling," he said. "Let's go." While leading her to the place he called, "My Crash Course Nest" he described the landlady that allowed him to stay in one of her rooms as long as she could store maintenance gear in his room and he allotted some money for her whenever he decided to make an appearance, which, by the sounds (and more, because to be honest, he didn't look or smell like someone who had constant access to a bed or a shower) of it, wasn't very often and more of an annoyance to the landlady than anything else.

"Wait, you pay her with money?" Shilo asked, trailing behind him.

The Graverobber looked over his shoulder, deciding to play with her a little. "Yes, Shilo, because in society it is quite common to exchange a good or service for something of common monetary value," he said slowly, in a voice ideally used to address people just learning to read. Yeah, of course it would seem surprising that he'd ever pay someone in common currency because his only real net worth appeared to be in the drugs he sold. She looked somewhat hurt, and before she could retaliate in some way, he became more serious. "She doesn't do drugs, doesn't get surgeries. None of that works on her. I make money I don't usually spend, so it's worth it."

"But you're out so often," Shilo argued.

"Yeah, but when I need someplace to stay, I really, _really _need it. And I trust her far more than I trust any creep who runs motels where you can't even feel comfortable sleeping between the sheets without wondering what all the people who stayed in the room prior did to make the room so goddamned filthy." He stopped at the back entrance of a fairly ugly-looking brick building probably about twenty to thirty stories high. "Oh good. We're here." He crept around to the front of the building and walked in to the closest room on the first floor and knocked on the door.

"It's open!" called a woman's voice; one that had a slight accent from…her mind drew a blank. Some country in Southeast Asia, Shilo guessed. The Graverobber opened the door and ushered her inside, following her.

The woman was small, probably no taller than Shilo, and not much heavier. She had a world-weary, businesslike look about her, as though she had seen the world and it really wasn't worth the hype. She narrowed her eyes when she saw the two of them.

"I thought I told you, you can't bring in clientele," she told him sharply.

"I know it," the Graverobber said quickly. "She isn't one of my customers. She's a friend who needs a place for the night." When the woman gave him an even harder, withering look, he added, "She's eighteen, Joan. Christ." He was lying through his teeth on that last one, but she seemed convinced, or at least too tired to argue at this godforsaken hour.

As he retrieved several bills from his satchel and placed them in the palm of her small, calloused hand, she said, "It's a good thing for you that I can't sleep either. And if you start bringing women home on a regular basis, they might have to pay a fee, too." She reached into a ceramic bowl on the round table next to her and pulled out a key labeled "338", and handed it to him with some trepidation. She didn't trust him much, but it was more than almost anyone would allow.

"Thanks for not handing me over this time," he told her, as always. Any time he came in at night, when she couldn't sleep but sure as hell tried, she could easily have called the cops on him, but after close to ten years had yet to even pick up the phone. She seemed to hate the police force as much as he did.

"Yes, well, maybe next time," she said, her standard reply.

"What a nice lady," Shilo said bitterly, walking with him up the stairs to the fourth floor. The years of confinement hadn't done much to power her lungs, so it seemed quite cruel that after roughing it for nearly a day and a half after suffering the worst trauma of her life, she'd have to wheeze and pant trying to climb three flights of stairs because the elevator was out of order.

"She's spectacular," the Graverobber said in the woman's defense. "She could have had quite a reward right now if she blew the whistle on me. If she had any grudge towards me, any at all, and I'd probably have died before now."

"Well, what about the other people in the apartment? Couldn't they have seen you and called the GeneCops?" Shilo argued.

"Well, as a rule, I don't normally come around when people are out and about," he said when they reached the room. It was on the small side, and ugly, with no attempts at trying to make it a genuine home. Aside from a mattress with a few folded blankets at the foot of it, a fridge not much larger than a milk crate, and several boxes of…things she wasn't sure she wanted to know, there was nothing but paint cans and industrial equipment. Not even furniture. It made sense, of course. She supposed that to him, there was no such thing as home. "I'll find something for us to eat while you're in there," he said, nodding towards the bathroom door. "I guess you haven't had a chance to eat anything for a while?"

Shilo's stomach rumbled loudly enough that it answered for itself. "Any food allergies?" he asked.

"No," she said. Then she added, "I hate mayonnaise, though. Mayonnaise and shellfish."

"Good enough. I'll be back as soon as I can." He opened the window and climbed through to the fire escape, made it to the top of the first floor, and jumped down to the pavement. He didn't keep food in the fridge; there was no point. Anything would spoil between stays. All he kept in there was water and ice. He did, however, know a lot of restaurant patrons who liked the numb high following cheek or chin implants who, though they paid him, claimed to owe him, "a fine meal, eh?" and he figured now was a good time to take them up on those offers. He stopped by one, an Italian place, where at the back door he asked a cook staying over night to clean up for a container of whatever was left over that didn't contain shellfish.

"What size container?"

He thought for a moment. "Big," he said. He didn't have to wait long before the cook appeared with a container half-filled with tortellini, the other half with stuffed manicotti, with napkins and actual silverware. So this fellow knew about him. He imagined this particular restaurant manager saying, "Now, there's this guy who looks like the Boogeyman who's gotten me through quite a few surgeries, and if he ever shows up, give him whatever he wants, no questions asked. Please, for the love of God. I have no idea what he's capable of."

"Have a good morning," he said, staring at the Graverobber's hair and unnaturally pale skin as though he were a monster that hid under his bed as a child. The Graverobber smiled ghoulishly at him in return and walked away, pretty certain that he had sufficiently frightened the kid who stood in the open doorway. He just loved smiling at people, just to see the expression on their faces that made them regret ever having said, "Smile! It won't kill you!"

He climbed the fire escape with one hand, the other gingerly holding the food and silverware, and once he was back inside set the box on top of the fridge and sat on the mattress, waiting for Shilo to come out of the bathroom.

She did, after five minutes, wearing a shirt and pair of black jeans, barefoot and stepping gingerly on the carpet. He noticed there were band-aids where there had been cuts and blisters. He'd hardly remembered he had anything as cute as band-aids and little tubes of Neosporin. Most of the wounds he'd accumulated over the years required nothing short of a bottle of iodine and a sewing kit. He was glad it was there, though. He was glad that, whatever lasting trauma she'd have, she was at least clean.

"I don't have plates," he said after a moment of looking at her, understanding the quiet despair with which she didn't want to trouble him, the downcast eyes, the probability that he dark rings around her eyes would only get worse, and tried to soften the moment. "But I've got everything else." He took a couple of steel cups out of one of the boxes lining the wall beside the fridge and filled them with water, set the cups on the floor and then the container with the silver between the two.

She gave him and the modest little spread a weary, albeit grateful smile and settled down on the floor opposite him as he took off his coat and folded it behind him, and they ate. For a few moments she only prodded the food with her fork, but she realized her hunger was, for the time being, more demanding than her shock or her grief, and she buckled down to eat as much as her shrunken stomach could hold. It tasted good, though not as hot as either of them would have preferred, but luck was on their side, if for no other reason than that they could have been eating something cold. Just silence, aside from chewing and sipping, because really, what was there to say? "Gee, I'm sorry for your loss. I hope the withdrawal from a lifetime of heavy drugs doesn't kill you before the grief sends you to suicide." "So what is it like to have sex with a woman whose privates have been remodeled half a dozen times?" Asking her if she was all right was simply out of the question. He liked to say that, as Shilo had said, he was a survivor; someone who had seen the bad side of everything more than the good, but he couldn't fathom what was running through her mind. He didn't want to know what nightmares she would undoubtedly have.

When she finally did speak, her words surprised him. Staring forlornly into her lap, she mumbled, "I look so ugly without my wig."

The Graverobber looked at her for a moment, considering, before saying, "No, I like it. It makes you look like a little peanut."

Shilo immediately jerked her head up and glared at him. The anger was better than grief, in his opinion, and seeing it on her cute little face made him crack up.

Then tears filled her big mirror eyes and he was mortified to realize he would have a crying girl on his hands. A girl that he made cry.

"Shit! No, I didn't mean it like that! You're pretty! _Pretty_! Gorgeous, I tell you!" To no avail. She wrapped her little toothpick arms around herself and cried, rocking back and forth. Suddenly it was about more than an offhand remark about her looks. It would be one of the first times she would break down in front of him.

"Why am I alive?" she sobbed, the tears catching on her pants, her bare feet, the carpet. "Why am I left?" She choked on her own tears and regret. "Wh-_why_? Why d-did he leave me?" She uttered a wordless cry, trembling. "Weeeaaah! Weeeaaahhh!"

_Oh God or Buddha or Santa or whoever the fuck is up there, please shut her up. _But it wouldn't work. He was the one that had started the tears, so it was inevitably up to him to calm her down, at least for now. He wasn't sure if he should touch her hand or if she was completely averse to touch at this point. "Hey, hey," he said. "I'm sorry."

Shilo looked up at him, eyes red and watery, mouth trembling. "S-s-sorry?" she said, "You're _sorry_?" she already knew such a word was exempt from his vocabulary, and it shocked her. For a moment she didn't cry, and just looked at him. The tears returned, of course. One word couldn't undo everything, still, it had worked for a moment, and she wasn't sobbing quite as loudly. He decided to take a risk and he scooted forward, putting his hand on her shoulder. She trembled at the touch, once again surprised out of tears, and looked, startled, into his eyes.

"You're a lot stronger than anyone would've thought," he said, the words flying out of their own accord, though certainly not lacking in sincerity. "You're really brave. You know that?" She shook her head, and this time took _him _by surprise when she grabbed him around the waist and buried her face in his shoulder. His eyes widened, only partially of it at the idea of someone like her touching someone like him even in the most platonic manner, but slowly, he hesitantly patted her on the back. It took several minutes more of soaking his threadbare, unclean shirt, capturing him in a surprisingly strong grip for someone little and weak, but eventually the crying subsided. She sniffled a few times, and he didn't complain when she appeared to have wiped her nose on his shirt—he'd probably use the laundry downstairs anyway, if his clothes were still strong enough to take a go in the washing machine. Her breathing became steadier, though just for a few seconds longer than necessary, she held onto him, arms wrapped tight around the solid power of his back, the delicate contours of her face against the material of his shirt, which had soaked through to his skin. She didn't find a reason for it but he did, so he slowly, gently pulled away from her, and she finally let go of him.

She looked quite embarrassed as she wiped away her remaining tears with the palms of her hands. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to do that to you. Especially not so soon. It won't happen again. I promise." She looked up at him with no small amount of trepidation.

"No, it's okay. I'm the one who's sorry," the Graverobber told her. She made a sincere vow to control herself, but he doubted this would be the last time she'd burst into tears over something he had thought was completely insignificant. He looked down at his shirt, and she too looked at the imprint of tears on the pathetic cloth. He laughed a little, holding the fabric away from his body, which gave her permission to giggle, though it sounded desperate, not sincere. She just wanted to forget it, pretend she was made of steel, lest he decide she was a hopeless case and kick her out.

"You full?" he said finally. Shilo nodded. "Me too. I'm guessing we'll be back tomorrow, so we can have the rest then?" he made a statement, a decision, into a question, unsure if she turned up her nose at leftovers. It didn't matter if she did, initially. She wanted to learn to survive, she'd have to learn that when on the lam, this was as good as it could possibly get. Instead, she nodded eagerly. She'd liked the food as much as he had, apparently. He closed up the container and put it in the fridge, fully enjoying the irony of using it to actually store food for the first time. "If you want to unwind, one of the boxes is full of books. Mostly it's older literature. Ever heard of Steinbeck?"

"Of course," Shilo told him, looking slightly indignant.

"A lot of him. And there's a fair amount of translated books." He took his only other pair of trousers, his only other pair of underpants, and decided it was probably not worth it to put his now snot-covered shirt back on, though it was the only one he had. He hated being unclothed even he was only missing his shirt. Even worse, he was now sharing a space with someone with no personal knowledge of another person's body. Make do, make do. He headed into the bathroom and turned on the showerhead. His landlady, that blessèd woman, had turned on the hot water tap. It was a marvelous thing, a warm shower, especially for a man who considered one per week to be a lucky frequency. He didn't have any shampoo; his hair was past the point of attempting to tame, but he did try to scrub a little soap into it, with limited success. He remembered Felicity, after paying for and getting his (her?) high, once telling him that it was frightening to see a white man with dreadlocks.

"They aren't dreadlocks," he'd said.

Felicity had giggled feebly and taken a few strands of dyed hair in his hand, far more bold than he would have been sober, and said, "Well it doesn't look like hair _should _look." And he, the professional beautician, should know. Remembering that exchange made him scrub harder, but he inevitably tangled his fingers in snarls that took several minutes to escape, and managed to rip out a few pieces of hair in the process. "Goddamn it," he muttered, and focused instead on cleaning his body, and was both fascinated and repulsed to see weeks worth of grime and dried and re-dried sweat all spilling down the drain. When he was sure he was as clean as he was ever going to be, he turned off the water and dried off, glancing in the mirror. His lipstick –a few of his clients gave him hell for that and still claiming to be heterosexual—had pretty much faded to a slightly lavender-looking color, which looked far worse, and most of his eye make-up was gone, except for a perpetual ring of liner that made him look just a little bit like that extinct bear…the panda. Contrary to popular belief, he _didn't _bleach his skin or wear white face-paint. It's amazing how a mixture of a genetic predisposition to have fair skin mixed with avoiding sunlight for close to ten years paled the skin; he wanted to tell the nonbelievers.

"You're ugly, right?" he told his reflection. "Is that why you wear freaky make-up? Because it's better to look like the Boogeyman than an ordinary mortal?" He snorted and pulled on his under-and over-pants and stopped for a moment, his hand poised at the doorknob, wondering if maybe it was just a better idea to sit in the bathroom until he was sure Shilo was asleep and then get out. _Nah_, he thought. _It'll be miraculous if she sleeps at all tonight. _He took a breath and opened the door, holding his dirty clothes and boots under one arm.

Shilo had been curled up on the mattress, reading a paperback copy of Of Mice and Men, but at the sound of the bathroom door closing she immediately looked up and turned slightly pink (which was better than slightly green) at the sight he presented. At least she didn't see the tattoo on his back of Venus rising from the sea, except with vines and barbed wire both encircling her naked body. As it was, she had the (unpleasant, he was sure) privilege of seeing prominent chest hair, which seemed like nothing compared to the scars—ones too messy and painful-looking to be surgical, series of mottled bruises, and one bullet wound marring his white skin. The shape of his body, in general, she thought (and certainly didn't tell him) was pretty pleasant to look at, in spite of her embarrassment. The muscularity was hard earned, not from hours and hours at the gym, but from strenuous work and, most likely, play as well. She swallowed hard and slowly raised the book to her eye level, trying her best to pretend she hadn't noticed.

The Graverobber hesitantly went to put on his coat, left it unbuttoned, and picked up the meager pile of dirty laundry that consisted of a single change of clothes, and picked up Shilo's discarded dress, figuring a good wash would fade the bloodstains and would create at least a slightly more substantial load. "I'll be back," he said, and Shilo nodded her head almost violently.

It was a quick and, as usual, cheap load and took no longer than fifteen minutes so he was overjoyed, really, to immediately pull on his shirt, which now had a slight tear in the seam, but for now it was almost unnoticeable. It would probably be at least a month before he'd need a new one. And fuck it felt good to wear something clean.

Shilo was able to look at him when he returned, and after he cleaned his teeth (who said a drug dealer couldn't floss? He may not shower frequently enough, but there was no excuse for a lack of dental hygiene) he took off his coat and boots and asked her, "Do you think you can sleep tonight?"

She lowered the book for a moment and looked at him seriously. "No," she told him. "I really don't even want to try tonight."

The Graverobber wasn't the least bit surprised, and not troubled enough to try to convince her otherwise. "All right," he told her. "I'm not really tired either. Not much of a sleeper." With that he grabbed East of Eden from his box and settled next to her on the mattress, well it _was _his, and stretched out his legs, in contrast to Shilo, who still sat curled up, and after she finished Of Mice and Men she grabbed for his copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

After several hours, sunlight seeped through the window and as he stood to draw the blinds, he turned to Shilo and said, "You do realize of course that you'll be coming in to work with me?"

Shilo raised her eyebrows. "You really think I'm stupid, don't you?" she said, folding the book to her chest.

"Just checking."


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Repo! The Genetic Opera. It belongs to creators Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

Thank you for all positive feedback! It was definitely a push.

This chapter is significantly shorter than the first. That is because I'd like to break up one night into two chapters, so Three will continue where Two leaves off.

Chapter Two

She didn't sleep at all that day; she hardly allowed herself the freedom to blink. Sprawled haphazardly on the mattress, shifting his legs or back in frequent shifts, neither did he. Around noon, she turned to him and said, "Are you an insomniac, by any chance?"

"Not really. Don't know, actually," he said. "Trying not to die has definitely kept me awake at times. I have to hide during the day, so there's rarely anything better to do, but inevitably I end up just making little figurines out of cans n shit. Maybe read whatever's been thrown out, but that's usually ruined pornography."

"Ruined?" Shilo furrowed her brow at him, confused and completely endearing in her naiveté. For a moment he didn't want to say a thing, try to pretend she'd heard him wrong, but decided it was for the best. She wanted to know the ins and outs of the world (hehehe), and it wasn't pretty.

"When a man is heavily stimulated by something, he releases a—" when she held a hand up to stop him he sat back, smirking.

"I get it, I get it."

"There's no good way of actually trying to unstuck the pages," he added helpfully, watching Shilo cringe. "And it's more trouble than it's worth."

"Just let me know when it's time to get ready for work."

"Will do," the Graverobber said, picking up his paperback.

Around six, after getting up and pacing several times to fend off the heavy feeling in his legs and after each getting up several times to use the bathroom ("this is a luxury you will dearly miss whenever it's out of your reach"), they started prepping. He took several vials from one pocket of his satchel and another two from his coat and put them in the same pack, sterilized all the needles he owned with two separate bottles that could have stripped the paint off the walls, rinsed them, cleaned and polished all his instruments ("If I only clean them this occasionally, I do it well" he told her). After setting up everything for work, he took a little tin…what was it? A box wasn't quite the word. He twisted open the lid and dabbed its contents—black wax—with his fingers and onto his lips, and smeared the residue on his fingers onto his eyelids, not once looking in a mirror, seated amidst the foul-smelling bottles.

"Why do you do that?" Shilo asked, putting her book aside, smiling a little at him. If he had only one shirt and seemed completely incapable of taming that multi-colored mane of his, why did he put on something as silly and theatrical as that lipstick and liner?

"Hmmm?" The Graverobber looked up at her.

"Wear make-up?" Shilo pressed. She sat forward and rested her forearms on her knees. "You're not obsessed with beauty, so what's the deal?"

The Graverobber set aside his satchel and gave her a frightening look, a penetrating stare fixed with a wide, predatory smile that made every other one she'd ever seen on him look cute and non-threatening. Straight, white teeth framed by a cruel black line twisted into only a mockery of a smile; bright blue eyes brought into a hollow abyss by dark lids. "It's easier to distance yourself from your customers if you don't seem quite right. Quite…human." His face relaxed just a little. "I'm a dramatic man," he added. "And I want to make an impression on these people, give them an idea of what they're in for."

"You're trying to tell them you're deranged?" Shilo said.

"Exactly." He buckled up his boots and stood. "Honestly," he said, "If the only people you can afford to know are people who are willing to destroy every other aspect of their lives in the search for a perfect nose, perfect breasts, perfect teeth, and not be sober enough to enjoy them, would you really care if they liked how you look?"

She also stood, so she could see him better. He looked strange, certainly. Alarming, actually, was her first thought when she saw him in the cemetery less than a week ago, some terrible night creature. But an advantage he _did _have over his mostly-prettier clients decaying, losing their identity, their dignity, their money and, inevitably, their lives with a sober eye and see exactly what he was missing. She scuffed her foot along the carpet. "I guess not," she said.

"You better do more than guess, kid," the Graverobber told her seriously. "If you want to live, you have to know whose company won't harm you to keep, and who'd be willing to sell your teeth."

"Well, can I trust _you_?" she said, folding her arms across her chest, looking up at him importantly.

He poured his tin cup with water. "Yeah," he said, almost laughing/scoffing at Shilo. As he poured some water for her, he said, "You're lucky to hear that, I'm not made of gold or anything, but if I haven't harmed you by now, you can be pretty sure I won't. I mean, look at the time I found you in that tent and brought you home. Could've gone awry, but didn't." He paused, taking a sip, and said, "If you're still asking that question about me, why'd you ask for my guidance, I wonder?"

"I'm not, really," Shilo told him. He just grinned at her, the playfully dark expression purely visible behind the cup as he finished it off.

Staying awake for about twelve hours without eating had left both of them hungry, so in spite of his hesitance, the Graverobber gave both him and her permission to have half of the considerable amount that remained. For someone who hadn't been near a kitchen at any time during his career, anything could seem appetizing on the prowl. Something homemade was revered and cherished like a fond memory, but eaten quickly in case he had to run before finishing it. She was, in her own words, spoiled. Not that she had ever seen or smelled anything spoiled to know if that was accurate.

"Come on, it's just after seven. They're starting to collect as we speak." He pulled on his coat and Shilo pulled on the dark, heavy jacket he'd found for her, and they left, this time climbing out the fire escape. "Keep close to me," he said to her over his shoulder as they started in on their destination. She had to jog to keep up with his long-legged stride. "A lot of them are harmless, but I just want you to be safe."

They walked along the inside of murky alleyways (that, aside from the modern embellishments, could have passed as precise replicas of the dark alleys where Jack the Ripper gutted prostitutes) until Shilo stopped, and he lost the sound of little feet pattering in slightly oversized shoes.

"What?" he asked, still facing ahead?

"_Look_." The Graverobber turned around and saw Shilo's face on the wall, the words "WANTED: Shilo Wallace; 17 yrs old; height: 5"0; eye color: brown; hair color: dark brown; wanted for: corporate blackmail and attempted murder. Return alive to GeneCo headquarters for high cash reward." She had hair in the picture, but one could easily identify the girl who stared, horrified, at her poster likeness. "But I didn't _do _anything," Shilo half-whispered, her voice a blend of outrage, fear, and…betrayal, he guessed. In her lack of experience with the world, she'd probably assumed that people were honest and understanding at heart. It hadn't occurred to her that people would hunt after someone as obviously harmless and helpless as she.

"I believe you," the Graverobber said and took her wrist to bring her back to business matters.

Shilo refused to budge. "What do they possibly have to gain from hurting me?" she demanded. "They've already taken anything I own. _What more do they want_?" They both feared an oncoming meltdown, and so Shilo tried to take several breaths, pinched the bridge of her nose and looked up to keep the tears from filling up her eyes. He glanced back at the poster, disgusted, and decided to level with the girl in front of him.

"They're paranoid," he told her. "All three of them. They're as frightened as you are and they need a scapegoat: someone to make them believe that they're blameless."

"Blameless?" Shilo looked over at him wearily. "Blameless of what?"

"They can't stand the idea that maybe their late father could see through their attempts to kiss his ass to get his money. None of them, especially the sons, can stand to believe they're incompetent, or worse, that people can see they are." He looked her in the eye, making sure she absorbed every word. "The Largo children would all rather pin all the blame on someone half their age; believe someone put a wedge between them and their father's heart than face the simple truth. They'd placed it there themselves years ago."

Shilo's eyes darted across various points on his face, analyzing his expression for some hint of a joke, and found none. She was incredulous and repulsed to no end. "People are _so stupid_," she sad.

"That they are," the Graverobber agreed. "Let's go."

Shilo stayed back for a moment, glancing back at the poster. "Do you think they might have seen this?" she said, nodding towards said poster. "Or any of the other god knows how many are up by now?"

It had crossed his mind, but he didn't want to alarm her, or skip work, for that matter. Anyway, he himself had a handsome price on his head that had risen in value steadily over the past several years. She didn't know whom she was talking to. He broke into a wide smile and put his arm around her shoulders. "Oh, ye of little faith!" he chided her, "Haven't you forgotten? I'm an escape artist. I won't let you fall into harm. What kind of mentor would I be then?" Shilo looked at him like, cut the theatrics, man. I'm not an idiot. Still, she knew he was right. He was, as she had said, a survivor, and walked with him to his alley, not commenting on his hand sliding to her back in any way. (If she had asked, he would have said he was guiding her, though in part, he just liked how the curve of her spine felt against his hand. She had the small, lithe build of a ballet dancer.) When they actually did reach their destination, a fairly decent-sized gathering of junkies already waited for him, and immediately took to watching his elfin, androgynous little friend. A few fixed her with a stare that could have stemmed from seeing her on Wanted posters, but more likely from her doe-like beauty. He stopped her and leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Work with me. There is no way they'll try to hurt you if I—"

The Graverobber slid the hand around Shilo's back lower, just above her butt, kept his face just above hers, and fixed her with one of his most evil smiles before sliding his other hand to the back of her head and pressing his mouth firmly over hers. Her eyes widened and she grasped his upper arms, squeezing as hard as she could, which, to the onlooker, made it seem like she was trying to pull him in closer. His only response was to briefly lick her bottom lip, smiling a little into the contact, and finally break away.

Shilo stared up at him with half a mind to slap him so hard across the face she'd leave a red handprint for him to remember her by when she'd eventually leave. He smiled back and nodded his head towards the customers. Those that weren't staring at them open-mouthed were staring at their feet or each other, either trying to look penitent or unable to hide a knowing smirk. Apparently they knew more than she did, what with that smirk. The Graverobber walked into their circle grandly, holding his gun aloft, and Shilo stayed only vaguely close behind him as he announced that the night was open for business.

For her part, she rather enjoyed watching him work. She wasn't sure he'd be flattered to hear that he was graceful, but he was. She cringed whenever he lifted up a woman's skirt to inject the Zydrate into her inner thigh—they looked so cheap, like they wanted instead to pay for his drug with rather unenthusiastic sex, but the Graverobber, she was sure, would have turned down such offers—but she liked watching his large graceful hands and long, slender fingers use Zydrate gun with the practiced air of a concert cellist. She helped him speed things up (anything to feel less like a burden) by putting used vials back in and removing new vials from his satchel. She also couldn't help but feel her heart speed up a little every time his fingers brushed hers, and she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with him kissing her; _that _was a cruel thing with which to surprise her…in front of all those people.

The first three or four hours passed by in a surprisingly efficient fashion; Shilo rather enjoyed watching some of his customers in extravagant clothing of cheap fabric and the strangest fits; some almost Victorian and embellished, others grungy and masculine (regardless of gender) and others still an excuse to display their scalpel-purchased wares. As a child she'd enjoyed playing dress-up, though that lost its effect when there were none of her mother's old clothes around to totter in, nor could she arrange fashion shows for anyone other than her father who, patient as any father could be, just didn't _understand. _

When business was dying down for the time being (the Graverobber informed her that most customers came by before eleven or well after midnight) he leaned back against the graffiti'd SUPPORT REPOSESSION notice and tilted his head down at Shilo. "What did you think? A little exercise in anthropology?"

Shilo glared at him, not fully recovered from the kiss. "You enjoyed doing that, didn't you?" she said; not quite angry but enough to make it seem like she was seething. Maybe enough even to garner an apology.

The Graverobber took several steps, heel toe, looking up at the sky with a too-innocent look. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he told her in an almost singsong voice, twirling the Zydrate gun from hand to hand.

"Yes, you do."

"I most _certainly _do," he said. "And yes, I did. I'm a fool for pretty girls who ask me for something other than what I can give in my gun." He glanced over; slightly disappointed that she didn't seem to get any double meaning. So naive.

Shilo looked at him incredulously. "I'm not pretty at all," she said.

Inwardly, that almost hurt him to hear. "Suit yourself," he said aloud, readying himself for a man—a boy, really—who had just appeared. _Right, like being made of silicone is better, _he thought. Years and years of watching men and, more often, women, turn in their ordinary yet always unique bodies and faces into almost identical copies; the same legs, the same breasts, the same teeth, the same lips, asses and hair, and still always want to adapt and remodel according to the new fads; watching with a sober eye at the past decades was often a very unpleasant thing. Her boyish voice, her not quite perfect smile, and even that shiny bald dome of a head were all so impossibly endearing. Maybe she was thinking of Amber Sweet –_she usually comes around every other day, must be her new schedule—_and his obvious history with her.

That_ will require an explanation._

"But that other thing you mentioned, the anthropology, yes. I kind of liked it, actually," Shilo added, sitting down on a wooden crate and pulling her legs up to her chest. "It feels like the last seventeen years weren't real; it feels as though this is where my life is starting." She laughed, more solemn and ironic than actually amused. "It's amazing. Aside from my father, _you're the first person I've ever met._" The look in her eyes was too intense to not look away. "I've been alive for seventeen years and ten months and…" she laughed again, this time probably to keep from choking or worse, crying, "…my god, it doesn't even seem real. Just being out here these few days and seeing so many people, it seems impossible that I could have been alone all that time." She thinned her lips into a line, and then released them. "Does that make any sense?" she asked, "To you?"

The Graverobber slid down to sit on the ground facing her. "Yes, I think it does," he said, watching her and thinking, _How can she not think she's pretty?_

"Then you realize that that thing back there was my first kiss," Shilo told him. Oh, no, she wasn't about to let him off that easy.

The Graverobber leaned back against the wall, fixing her with a particularly lazy, unapologetic smile. She wasn't going to drop it, so he may as well have her remember it, eh? "So, how did it measure up to your girlhood dreams?" he asked.

"I…" Shilo tried to look indignant, but with pink in the apples of her cheeks and the tips of her ears, her mouth twitching upwards of its own accord, she couldn't quite manage. "I should have known you'd say that," she said wearily.

"And….?"

"And…" Shilo scrutinized him and his smug, devil-may-care expression, "…and I'm not going to tell you."

"Oh, come on."

"That's your punishment."

"You're killing me," he said, gently knocking the back of his head against the wall, though not without a remainder of his smile. "I'll just have to assume you liked it," he informed her. "You liked it yet you're too modest and upstanding to admit you liked it."

"Right. Do it again and I _will _slap you." Shilo glanced over at an incoming customer and watched the Graverobber stand and continue his civic duties.


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Repo!: the Genetic Opera. It belongs to Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich. Speaking of that last name, I hadn't really realized this until recently but my god, he's gorgeous.

Note: the exchange between the Graverobber and the first customer is based off of one time when a call girl propositioned my brother-in-law. His rejection, to me, was hilarious so I'm glad to finally have a use for it.

The dumpster is bigger in this chapter than it looks in the film. Just in case a helpful reader notices and decides to point out that Shilo may be small, but she's not a midget and probably wouldn't have _that _much room in the Graverobber's dumpster. And also, the line "Time only moves forward" is taken from one of my favorite lines in the magnificent _Angels in America: Perestroika_

Thank you for all positive feedback, reviews and otherwise. It always helps drive me forward.

Chapter Three

The next customer the Graverobber had was a short young woman with comically large, bouncy breasts and red and violet-tinted hair that made her olive skin look sallow. She gave him what he was pretty sure was called a "come-hither look" but immediately thereafter seemed unable to keep from eyeing the Zydrate gun in his hand. He could practically feel Shilo tense up feet behind him, but this wasn't anything to which he wasn't accustomed. So many women, and a few men, who assumed that because he was a young(ish) man with his junk intact that he'd gladly take some unenthusiastic sex with a silicone-based human instead of money in exchange for his drugs.

This woman hadn't tried this route before, so he let her go on, pushing out her breasts (as if they needed the help) and said, "I don't have any money"

He leaned down to the side of her face, wasted a perfectly sinister grin, and growled against her ear, "I don't take IOU's, sweetheart."

The woman ducked back to look him in the eye. "I figured I could pay another way," she said.

Just as he had thought. "I only accept cash," he told her, not as teasing this time.

The woman twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "But don't you think I'm pretty?" she said, and he could have sworn he heard something—oh, who was he kidding—someone hiss at them. He was fully aware now that Shilo was glaring daggers into his back, and for a moment he was torn between playing with this girl just to piss off the other, and simply letting her down easy. Just a moment.

"_No,_" he said, drawing away from the woman, who stared up with him first in shock then with utmost loathing, though the second emotion was completely derailed by her somewhat frozen features. She turned her heel and stalked off. He heard her mutter something that sounded like "asshole" as she disappeared into the early morning. He grinned a little to himself as he heard Shilo walk up to him, and stand at his side. His little minion. He glanced down for a moment to see her fixed with a mean little smile, staring after the long-gone customer.

Her smile partially faded quickly, though. "You could have taken her up on the offer," she said. "She had terrific boobs."

The Graverobber snickered. In truth he wondered why in the hell Shilo would say something like that; maybe she was baiting him to see what kind of woman he really liked, or perhaps she just wanted to reassure herself that she wasn't the reason he turned down a perfectly good sexual invitation. "Oh, young Shilo, you have a lot to learn about sex," he said, and stood far enough away that she could properly see him as he taught lesson one. "Big boobs," he told her, "are a _lot_ of fun, speaking as a red-blooded man. In this day and age, big boobs are considered a must-have fashion accessory, like a handbag or watch, so more often big boobs are fake, and _fake boobs,_" the Graverobber stepped back and held his index finger at face level, looking quite solemnly at Shilo, "are not fun at all. They just don't feel right in your hands." With that he spun around, profile facing her, outstretched his hands to chest level in front of him, and made several squeezing gestures, groping the air with a scrutinizing expression.

When he shifted his eyes to look at Shilo, she was already doubled over, hands on knees, caught between breathless, almost painful-looking laughter, cheeks flushed pink, and spasms of "ewwwww." That laughter was new; something he didn't think he'd ever hear from her. It was the kind of laugh that starts deep in the gut and reverberates through the entire body, in essence, a belly-laugh. He was enchanted.

He threw back his head and laughed. "Kid, you are the best audience I've had in a long time." Her response for everything pleased his inner performer to no end, and it was so easy to provoke her. "So much more alive than my usual sorry-ass set." He almost laughed again, seeing a pair of black wax lips imprinted over hers. She probably wouldn't find it as funny as him, especially when, in the effort to wipe it off, her lips would turn a slightly dead-looking shade of lavender. He liked her sincere, unapologetic emotion; she hadn't had any way of learning how to interact with others, so it was kind of fun seeing her with almost childlike social graces. It was as authentic as her natural beauty.

Shilo caught her breath and looked at him…almost fondly. "It's a shame you don't get more recognition," she said.

"Yeah, well," the Graverobber said, "the company I keep wants drugs, not laughs." His theatrics deflated some and he was back to business. "I was thinking," he said, "Maybe tomorrow we should stay outside."

"Wait…_outside_? In broad daylight?" Shilo asked, and then immediately wanted to smack her forehead. Of course not. He didn't feel the need to make her feel any dumber, so he elaborated instead.

"I figured, since you wanted me to teach you what it's like to rough the elements, and, well, it's how I usually live, we may as well." He leaned against his dumpster, rapping his fist against the thin metal wall, enjoying the reverberating sound it made. "Dumpsters for the most part are okay, such as this one. But be forewarned, not all dumpsters are created equal, and one of this size is perfect for one person, but two…with two we might have to sleep spoons."

"Huh?"

The Graverobber tilted his head back. "What I mean is, we'd be pretty damn cozy in this one. That is, if that would bother you." He sneaked a quick little smirk in her direction. She quirked an eyebrow—or it had been an eyebrow, but was now a faint black line, as false as her wig—and quirked her mouth in what might have been amusement, but deep down she _was_ Shilo Wallace, and she didn't want to insinuate anything else; he was doing one hell of a job on his own. "You might not be able to sleep yet, but it'll come back sometime. I promise you. Even in the confines of a waste disposal unit." For a moment, he seemed almost gentle; world-weary and tender with this girl who had faced tragedy beyond her years yet still had no idea how to survive into the next. He watched her through half-closed eyes, arms folded across his chest, still for a few seconds, unsure if it would seem too intimidating if he touched her.

And then he was back to normal. "What you also need to learn is scavenging," he said. "Which is actually a lot of fun. Like a treasure hunt. Kind of." He beckoned her closer and he outstretched his hands, as if to tell her he was going to lift her up.

"Why?" she responded to his gesture.

"Show you what it's like inside a dumpster," he replied. She gave him a look, and he threw up his hands. "Oh, come on. I'm not going to _throw_ you in the fucking thing. Just trust me. I haven't let you down yet, have I?" Shilo exhaled, eyes slanted, catlike, and she stepped close to him.

"You better not fucking throw me," she groused as he lifted her up above him and seated her on the lid of his dumpster, her legs now dangling over the edge.

"Go on, hop in," the Graverobber instructed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Shilo realized this sounded kind of like he was a parent teaching his child to swim. ("I won't throw you in the pool. Of course not. But it's better to just jump in and get the worst part over with.") She shook her head, swiveled to the side so she now was overlooking the other, unguarded half of the dumpster, braced her hands on the metal edge, and slid down.

She waved her arms a bit, trying not to fall back and smack her head a good one against the metal lid jagging out quite close behind her, and shifted her feet, wrinkling her nose at the unsteady surface on which she now stood, not to mention the stale smell of old cigarette butts and mostly-empty crushed cans of beer and soda. At least there wasn't any rotting food. When she was certain she had regained her center of gravity, she knelt down and squinted her eyes against the dark to examine what lay under her.

"You okay?" came the Graverobber's voice from the other side.

"Yeah!" Shilo called back and went back to studying what she could. She wasn't too excited at the concept of having to touch anything, but if it came to that…wait a minute…"You're not going to leave while I'm in here, are you?" she demanded.

"No! I've said it before, if I haven't turned on you yet, I won't. You find anything?"

"Hang on a minute," she replied, more or less (probably less) reassured, and slowly swept back a layer of shriveled-up debris and strained her eyes to find…what looked like…a dress. One that looked like it could fit her, apparently; black lace and semi-sheer cotton, sleeveless and probably knee-length. She nodded, gave a grunt of approval, and tossed it over the side.

"Nice," the Graverobber replied after a few seconds, "but did you notice the pecker-stains on the back?" Without giving her time to ask what pecker-stains was, he muttered, "It'll wash away in the Laundromat. Oh, speaking of which," he raised his voice again, "Always, _always _clean clothes that you've found second-hand. If they're not new, there's probably a reason they've been thrown out."

"'Kay," Shilo said, and continued digging around. She found a pretty expensive-looking watch with a cracked lens, and the voice on the other side complained about wastefulness, but added in a more positive tone, "We could hawk this for a pretty good amount of money." He then promised her that if she wanted she could stop, and she was about to tell him to get her out when her fingertips brushed against something cold, smooth, and cylindrical. She traced the outline and picked it up gingerly in her hand. It was a handgun. "Graverobber," she called out to him.

"What is it?"

"I found this." She lifted her hand up over the edge, smart enough to know not to throw a gun, and heard a sharp intake of breath.

"Put it back," he said immediately. "A weapon in a dumpster means trouble." Shilo quickly obeyed him, and then reached up to sit back on the partial lid. The Graverobber took her by the waist and clasped his other arm under her knees to pick her up off the lid and then just stood there, holding her for a moment, remembering the way he was holding her was called "Bridal Style" before grinning down at her. "How was it for your first dumpster dive?" he asked.

"Just fine," she replied. "Not too dirty."

"Glad to hear it." He glanced around him, set her down and then checked a stopwatch he had in his satchel, where she caught a glimpse of the treasures she'd found. "It's three in the morning, and it's a workday, so I think it's safe to call it quits for the day." He looked back at her after putting the stopwatch back. "You did well, kid," he said. "Really. You're one hell of a resilient person."

Shilo shrugged a little, remembering her modesty above all else. "I just don't think my dad would've wanted me to sit around moping forever," she muttered, averting her eyes. "Time only moves forward, you know?" she said softly, and closed her eyes before looking back at him.

His first reaction was, well, shock. Did she just openly mention her dad, and in such a reference? Then he quickly dreaded the onslaught of tears and the recollection of pain, but Shilo seemed to stifle whatever grief tried to break through her own resistance. She rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose for a good several seconds.

"Shilo, are you all right?" he asked. Twice in the past several minutes he'd asked something to his effect. What was it about her…?

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," she said quickly, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Just fine," she repeated, and procured an insecure smile. They both knew that wasn't entirely true. They also knew that now was not the time to properly grieve a man whose life had crossed the extremes of both heroism and martyrdom. And neither of them knew when that time would ever come.

"Come on," the Graverobber said, and silently led her back to the fire escape leading up to his room.

_Rotti Largo had made an excellent plan B to choose his daughter as the next-possible heir to GeneCo for three reasons:_

the first being that she had been the only child that had not tried to manipulate and coerce him into giving her the company. It had not been a power she had considered for herself, and not one with which she was infatuated enough to abuse. The second was, contrary to Luigi's insistence, she was easily the most intelligent and socially aware out of the three children. In spite of her demons both publicized and private, she had the best reputation out of the three and was also the most mentally stable—though that really said very little for any of them. The third and most obvious reason was that if she headed GeneCo, she wouldn't be able to wrestle her way into also being its Voice.

Her immediate response, rising to the challenge and remaining—at least on the exterior—calm in the face of madness, had done wonders for GeneCo's image, and the scathing reviews of her latest and last performance had nothing on the relief that she, and not Luigi or Pavi, would take control of the greatest remaining superpower on earth.

Now it was close to three in the morning, days after that Opera night, and Amber couldn't sleep. She hadn't been able even to nap since her father had died, and not necessarily due to work; she was just too edgy, too tense to be able to relax. She hadn't had a single hit or procedure within the past several days and if she went more than a day or two more she just _knew _she'd suffer for it. Drumming her fingers against her desk (she hadn't left the office all day), she bit her lip and considered the one monumental shift in her addiction: she had no one to chastise or watch over her. Daddy couldn't keep a close eye on Zydrate stock to see if she'd taken a vial here, a vial there. It was almost too much. She'd reapplied her make-up twice within the last ten hours because she had perspired enough to ruin her foundation and eye shadow. Because, of course, there was also her other source.

_Shit, girl, _she thought, _give it up. You know what it does to you. It's so easy to remember the last time you tried to get a quick face-lift. _The single most humiliating experience of her life. Of course. She had been so afraid of being seen with post-surgery scars she'd had her face applied with an adhesive instead, and just look what _that _had done to her. And the worst part was, it probably would have stayed on in spite of her pre-performance anxiety if she hadn't done the same thing so many times before. Yeah, she knew it was bad for her. But she'd seen so many addicts who knew they were killing themselves and they all knew that what they needed, what they craved, what their coherent mind knew but that basic, primal part of them could never grasp was that knowledge had nothing to do with it. Self-control, self-esteem was all completely different from the simple need for it. It wasn't just the surgeries. The only time she could sleep was when she was too numb and dizzy to do anything else. Her greatest thrill came from the whole danger of seeking out her man, her dealer, in the dark alleys amongst the shadows and feeling his hand slide against her thigh before letting her forget everything but that impossible dream of perfection.

He played such a significant role in her addiction, especially when she played around with him; exchanged what his drug had given her, everything a scalpel could ever offer, for the sweet oblivion that he returned. She always told him that she was _allowing _him to touch her, like she was a work of art and under ordinary circumstances he would be arrested for even allowing his fingertips to brush the surface—that was true, but they both knew she liked it that way.

He liked it naughty; she liked it risky.

But she had this responsibility now; if she slipped for a moment she knew one or both of her brothers would do away with her and all hell would break loose in their struggle for power. She couldn't sneak away like she once could, stern and shamed patriarch or no.

And she'd seen what too many surgeries had done to Pavi; several years of hiding his true deformed features, his real mouth permanently frozen into a grotesque smile, his skin ravaged as though he had been burned alive, and she knew she had to stop. Even after several years of seeing women's faces over his nearly every day and it still frightened and repulsed her.

But she needed to sleep. She needed some peace.

"Graverobber, you bastard," she whispered.

_Shilo insisted on having another shower. _The Graverobber, who never passed up a chance to shower or bathe, wanted one as well. And a shave. God _damn_, he hated having even a couple of days worth of stubble. He did like, however, being able to stay in the apartment again; he had some questions to ask, and he figured she'd feel more at ease if she were indoors. For instance: what were those so-called "meds" her father had dispensed for her all those years, and what had they done to her body? If the withdrawal, and surely she had to know there would be one, was worse than she had expected, was she prepared to stay behind and delay her plans to run away?

And that run-away thing. She needed to carve out something a little better thought-out than that; no one just _ran away _from Sanitarium Isle. "Shit," he muttered after nicking his chin. It was the price he paid for not being able to get new razors often enough; not even the cheap ones in little baggies.

When he came out of the bathroom, they sat down to a cold Styrofoam container of Italian food, and loved it, relishing the silence for a couple of minutes. Shilo said nothing about the imprint of his lips, now faded to lavender, clearly scrubbed off with extra care. After the worst of their hunger was satiated and they could think about something other than food, the Graverobber licked a spot of sauce from the corner of his lips and said, "You were on different…medications before the Opera?"

Shilo looked up at him, wide-eyed, probably thinking, _Nice going, ruining a pleasant moment, you jerk, _and said, "Yeah. My…Dad…was always telling me I had a blood disease, so I took all these pills at different times of the day or whenever my blood pressure got above a certain level. There were all these side-effects, like, well, no hair," she ran her free hand over the smooth dome of her head, "and pretty much no immune defense and whatnot. It kept me inside on quarantine all my life, and, as it turns out, there was no blood disease to begin with." She uttered a cold little laugh and it seemed used every ounce of self-control she had not to burst into tears again, keeping her jaw locked and thinning her lips to the inside of her mouth. As it was, she sniffed a couple of times.

The Graverobber tried to be as tactful as he knew how; he hadn't really needed to mind his manners at any point in his career. "I just wanted to ask," he said softly, "What were the other side effects of the medicine?"

She thought for a moment. "Other than the complete baldness and weak immune system? Chronic fatigue, anemia, and sensitivity to heat, light, noise and cold…" she then mumbled something he couldn't quite catch.

"What's that?"

She looked a little pink around the ears as she muttered, "amenorrhea."

"All right." That was one hell of a tall order. He hesitated, "You might have to stay where it's safe while the drugs…leave your body." Shilo averted her eyes. "I know, it's not really _safe_ anywhere, but there's no telling what's beyond Sanitarium Isle."

Shilo looked as though she wanted to say something, took several heaping mouthfuls of tortellini instead, packing her cheeks like a squirrel before chewing and swallowing. Even then, she waited before saying, "I never learned all this. Why is everything closed off? What happened to the rest of the world?"

The Graverobber set down his fork and looked at her. "A lot of it had to do with the world merging into one. No part of the world was secret; everything was sent into electronic and industrial frenzy, so the population was working at a full boil. It had its advantages; travel, communication, and technology, but at the same time, other things started to suffer. The environment was crumbling, global economies had no stability; even things like human health were taking downturns even with medical breakthroughs of all kinds.

"You ever hear about the ancient Mayan prophecy that the world would end in 2012?"

"No."

"Of course not. It didn't happen," he twirled his fork around in his fingers, "obviously. But something else happened. Everyone held the United States responsible, and we probably were, but it was, in a sense, the end of the world; it was the end of progression. We kept moving forward, faster and faster, leaving all this destruction in our wake, until whatever safety net we'd had was broken." He paused for a moment. "That time you found me in the cemetery, how much did you hear?"

Shilo shrugged. "Enough, I guess. It freaked the hell out of me, you know."

"You remember me saying, okay, _singing, _'industrialization has crippled the globe'?"

"Is that what happened?"

"In essence, yes. We broke apart, so that one world went back to the many worlds we'd had, like, over a millennium ago. This, in the face of mass organ failures. GeneCo was America's savior, although so little of America is left. As far as we know, no such help arrived for the rest of the world. But now, all we have is _this,_"he extended both arms to his sides, the effect of which was kind of ruined by his fork with a lonely piece of pesto-tortellini at the end. "All I've ever known is Sanitarium Isle. All most have ever known is Sanitarium Isle, and those who were born elsewhere refuse to return to their origins." He then promptly ate the tortellini that was dangling off the end of his fork.

Shilo watched him intently, as though watching his jaw shift as he chewed was of the utmost importance. "Why are we so afraid to branch out again?"

"Because the world is easier to manage when it's cut up into tiny sections." He watched her face with the same intensity as, not leaving her eyes, he stabbed the dissected filling of the last manicotti and forked it into his mouth. "Trust me, Shilo, I know how much it sucks to hear this but you can't just run off. Let's just wait out the next few days, see how your body takes not having those drugs; we'll work out a plan for you. I just," he stopped, not wanting in the least to say something sentimental. "I don't want to see you get killed, after everything."

Shilo sighed, dropping her fork and drawing her knees into her chest. "There's no choice, is there?" she said.

"Of course there's a choice. There's always a choice. In this case it's simply easier to see the bad choice," the Graverobber said. "Another choice being, are you going to try and sleep tonight?"

Shilo was already shaking her head. "I just don't think I'm ready for it," she told him. "And it's not like I'm tired. As long as my body's at rest."

He grunted, as in, "fine enough" and closed the lid on the now pretty much empty food container and setting it on top of the fridge to be thrown away the next time they left the apartment. "_I'm_ going to try and sleep, though," he warned her. "So no blasting your goddamned rap music or hosting any raves, got it?" he allotted her a brief, closed-mouth smile before going to the bathroom to brush his teeth and came back to take off his boots and sprawl out on the mattress, watching Shilo sit cross-legged next to him with a book.

"No sense in asking you to turn off the light, huh?" he said.

"The sun'll come out soon anyway," she muttered, not looking away from her—well, _his _book. He paused, shrugged to himself, and leaned back on the mattress, closing and reopening his eyes until, eventually, he started dozing, drifting away. Being in his profession, he was a very light sleeper, so after a few hours he could just feel someone's head nestle against his stomach, and felt a small, long-fingered hand on his chest. Not long after he felt the person beside him shift and squirm until she lay curled against him.

"Shove over," Shilo grumbled.

Not opening his eyes, the Graverobber laughed softly to himself and shifted further toward the wall, and turned to his side, wrapping one arm around Shilo's small, almost too-thin body, finding that she was an excellent source of heat, and allowed the heaviest spell of sleep to take him once more.

_Dad was begging for her forgiveness, torn between a rage she had never seen before and a soft hurt that was almost as alarming. _

"Shilo, please, please don't go with them," he begged her; the strangest sight in a Repo-Man suit yet so vulnerable. She could have burned him alive with all the resentment she had for him: the liar, the hypocrite, the jailer. Trying to hide demons she wasn't sure she wanted to discover. And for all that, he looked as though he may shatter into a thousand pieces if she left him for good.

Maybe he deserved it…

"I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, you have every reason to hate me, but please, they'll hurt you-"

And that was as far as he got before he screamed, the sound of tearing—a bullet—entering through his back and leaving a gaping hole at t he front; one that spilled over with blood, and he looked at her, the life fading from his blue eyes and now it was her who was screaming, spattered in his blood

Next thing she knew pair of strong, spidery hands was shaking her and she struggled with everything she had, letting her fists go this way and that, knowing that her scrawny body wouldn't hold up in any fight but god damn if she wasn't going to make it more difficult!

"MOTHER_FUCKER!"_

That voice sounded so familiar. Her eyes flew open and she saw the Graverobber sitting up, cringing as he had one hand over his nose, the other at his side, clenched into a fist.

"Did _I_ do that?" Shilo said, scrambling to take his hand away from his nose and examine it for herself. She frowned a little at the damage. It didn't look broken, but it was certainly bleeding to hell. Several drops collected on the Graverobber's shirt and he slid his eyes towards her.

"You have one hell of a right hook," he said, his voice somewhat occluded. "Ever consider a career in boxing?"

"I'm sorry!" she whimpered, and reached to the top of the fridge for the remaining napkins, dabbing at the heaviest trails of blood, panicking and apologizing every time he hissed and turned his head away from her fumbling hands.

"It's okay," he said finally, holding up his hand to stop her. "You were having a nightmare, that's all."

"My dad," was all Shilo said. It was all she needed to say.

"Next time I won't try to shake you," he replied, wincing as he touched his nose. "It _is_ a start, you know, actually sleeping for several hours. We went to sleep at, what, four? Four-thirty? And right now it's close to three. That's _good_, Shilo. It really is."

"They were fucking cowards," Shilo muttered. "That oldest one, the one who thinks he's hot shit because he stabs people to death for putting Splenda in his coffee instead of sugar? He cut open Dad's hamstrings _while his back was turned. _He couldn't have lasted a second fighting Dad…or…whatever it is Dad turned into when he was like that. For a few seconds I could hardly recognize him."

"I know," the Graverobber said.

Shilo turned to face him, alarmed, wanting to take his face in her hands so she could look him in the eye. "You do?" she said softly. Was there anything he _didn't_ know? Or was it that everyone knew and watched the death of the only person she'd ever known or loved on high-definition cable with surround sound?

"It's been played and replayed over TVs everywhere. The one I saw played it in slow motion with a close-up on Luigi's hand. People are calling him things now that they haven't had the courage to before, and it's probably why they're afraid of you. You were a child, a daughter that captured hearts everywhere, and nothing paints a villain quite like someone attacking a loving father when his back is turned." He tried to look at Shilo while his head was tilted up, but was pretty unsuccessful. "And you're right about him. Just the little bit I've heard from his kid sister whenever she was in enough privacy to rant about her family problems was nothing I'd ever want to know, or talk about. Not even with a therapist." When he was pretty sure his nose wasn't bleeding anymore, he reached for his boots and as he buckled them up, said, "I'm going to hand my keys back over. We'll leave in a couple of hours."

_It was about ten-thirty and business was coming close to a standstill. _The Graverobber had managed to wipe all the blood off his face and keep any more from leaking, but more than a few people asked about his bruised nose, smirking and wondering who was the lucky gal or fella who'd gotten in a shot.

"I really am sorry," Shilo said after their first customer in ten minutes came and went.

"I know. I believed you the first time you said it," he replied. He perked up at the sound of footsteps in the alley, in _his _alley. There were three pairs, in fact. One of them a set of heels clicking against the cement, the other two…boots, he was pretty sure. And this put him far from ease. That combination meant someone who was now very powerful and very, very dangerous.

Shilo saw him tense suddenly. "What is—"

"Shhh." He slowly took several steps in the direction of the sound, and saw a tall, slim figure flanked by two armed women. "Shit!" he hissed, and turned to Shilo. "Hide. Hide now."

"What? Why?"

"It's Amber Sweet."


	4. Chapter 4

I do not own Repo!: the Genetic Opera. It belongs to its creators Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

Thank you for all positive feedback, and I'm sorry to have taken so long to update. I was in the Smoky Mountain region this past week with no Internet access. Aside from that setback, it had some of the most beautiful summer weather I've ever experienced.

To everyone who saw the film "Serenity", try to guess which line from here is taken from the film. If you're correct, you will be rewarded with the Repo! character for whom you lust the most, naked. Guess the reference from an obscure line in the film and s/he will also be covered in the sauce of your choice. That said, I do not own "Serenity" or "Firefly". Both are the brainchildren of Joss Whedon.

Chapter Four

Shilo's reflexes didn't allow her a second of panic before she scrambled for a pile of crates and boxes at the edge of the dumpster and left the Graverobber with the unknown horrors of his most infamous…(customer/whore/client/some-time-lover/predator/trapper/temptress) who stood before him in a dark coat, having chosen something far more discreet to wear underneath as well than fishnet and a leather corset, flanked by two attractive women who had worn the fishnet in her stead. Part of him thought that they were far easier on the eyes than her male concubines in their creepy S&M gear, and the other part noticed the several guns they each had on their persons, and he knew he could make this a peaceful confrontation or his own possible suicide.

Strange how he'd always liked that sort of situation.

Upon closer inspection, seeing Amber Sweet's features better even with the harsh lamps of the nearby streetlights almost cutting into the shadows across her face, he saw that the structure and shape of her face hadn't been altered or remodeled in any way, except maybe to reconstruct her skin, and she'd done very little to make it seem any other way. She looked frightened, exhausted, maybe even a little ill, and wasn't in any kind of mood to play with him, and, with a girl at both their mercy, he didn't feel like taking much of a risk.

"I haven't seen you in a while," he said, his hand instinctively going for the money and the Zydrate in his pocket. The money she had no use for, she had too much of it already. The Zydrate…shit. It had been a while for someone with her built-up tolerance, hadn't it?

"I have a lot to do," she said. She wasn't in any condition for small talk, not with the way she was trembling. "I can't go on like I used to if I want to keep GeneCo from falling into the wrong hands, and you _know _either one of those bastards could destroy the free world just by trying to operate things on their own, so don't…" she stopped herself, trying not to enrage herself any more, and tried again. "I don't have the time, and I can't keep going on like this with the reputation I had when…Rotti…was still alive."

"Are you…" this was one customer of whom he had never expected this, "You're getting clean?"

Amber Sweet gave a bitter laugh. "No, no, no. I don't think I'll ever be clean. How many Zydrate-addicts sober up and stay that way?" She fixed him with a stare, the dark red-rimmed blue eyes almost silver, her skin pale not out of choice but because she was so close to physical illness, and all the pain that accompanied withdrawal. Probably it was already affecting her. "I came here," she said, "with a business proposition."

The Graverobber actually started to laugh at that. "A business…" he then saw the look on Miss Sweet's face and caught somewhere in the peripheral one of the women with her hand poised over the gun holster on her hip, and his smile partially faded. "Well, what do you have in mind?" he asked.

She squared her shoulders and looked him square in the eye, trying to draw herself up to his height though not being particularly successful without those ridiculous, stilt-like heels that had lost their practicality, and spoke very plainly. "The legal, dainty shit, it's not strong enough. Only what you bring around, god knows why, only _that _knocks me out enough. I need you to be ready with what I need whenever I need it, because these alleyway rendezvous? They're not going to work. I need you to be at _my_ disposal, when _I _need you."

The word flew out of his mouth without recourse from his brain. "No," he said, heard the two women cock their guns and suddenly closed his eyes. _Oh, shit, _he thought_. I'm going to die by a poor man's firing squad._ The bullets didn't come to him, though, and he opened his eyes. Mss Sweet had waved the guns away, still watching him with a mixture of predatory manipulation and complete, desperate fear. She worked by this combination for years; they had been her guiding emotions most of the times she'd given him sex.

"There will be compensations, of course," she said. "For one thing, I will pay you five times the standard fee for each vial you use, if I am your only customer. You won't be able to live _in _the main GeneCo building, of course. They _make _all the WANTED posters of you in that building, but I do know where you can stay, with running water for, you know, showers" –at that, the Graverobber started to reconsider his 'no hitting women' policy—"a fridge, discreet cemetery areas, and here's the best part" –he leaned in—"your pick of any GenTern at any time. They wouldn't mind. Word's gotten out that I have a special drug dispenser with another gun that makes people feel just as happy, and they all want to meet him." Her mouth appeared to twitch in what could have been a smile, but it left immediately.

"I doubt they'd want someone who looks more like me than one of your he-men, whatever happened to them," he said.

She thinned her lips, watching him, not liking having to drag out a conversation in the possibility of getting some relief. "Everyone gets bored with perfection once in a while," she said. "Danger can be far more enjoyable. And as for the men, they had to go. They had too much dirt on me to stay out of my employment and quiet at the same time. What do you say to my offer?"

_Serve you as my lord and mistress until one of us dies or you just decide I'm getting old and useless? Give up the only freedom I have? Leave someone innocent behind because I have low friends in high places? _There was always the girl who remained, silent and hidden behind the dumpster. At least, he thought so. He hadn't heard a sound all this time. Okay, perhaps the houseful of GenTerns appeared to be a perk, but knowing her, it probably was held together by hidden, breaking strings, and it all came at the price of his autonomy, maybe someone else's life, too.

The Graverobber couldn't say anything that wouldn't get him killed immediately for close to ten seconds, and even what he came up with was risky. "What happens to me if I say no?" he asked.

Amber Sweet clenched her jaw and stared almost through him. Her body language suggested very little change, but something in her eyes flashed; she was so close to rage. "I will have you hunted down, brought to me, and put through any number of persuasions until you give in. Unless you die first." She let that sink in, something far beyond what he once thought of her and more like her eldest brother; the one who stabbed or bludgeoned office temps and GenTerns to death for putting Splenda in his coffee instead of sugar. He wouldn't have allowed her the slightest opportunity to see his fear, not until she added one more thing that nearly stopped his heart. He didn't know if she was bluffing, or how she'd been so observant when high, but it didn't matter. "I know who're you're keeping from me. Girls like that, they'll always come crawling to you when they don't have anyone else. The young ones always like you." She saw his eye twitch involuntarily, the sudden frozen features, and she looked nearly overjoyed, triumphant, at the small, confessing response.

"Haha! I can read you better than anyone ever could. That silly, stupid thing? She's a tiny bit, but she means a lot to the company. You play along quietly, and I'll file a report that she died. I'll call of the search. If you don't care enough about your own life, try leaving. Try, and we'll find her, the pretty little girl you brought _home"_—she glanced around the alley with more disdain than she had right to; he'd fucked her in this alley, after all—"in plain view of one of my favorite employees, one very loyal to me."

_Terel. Goddamn chickenshit bastard. _His face was a complete mask of calm, and he was pretty certain his rapidly thudding heart wasn't loud enough for anyone else to hear.

"I think, with the girl, I'll let my brothers take care of her," Amber Sweet continued, running with her discovery, its implications, and having the time of her life with his weakness, "They're interested in their own kind of interrogation, and for god's sake, don't look at me like that. Desperate times call for desperate measures, Graverobber." She said those last words almost lightly; her mouth twitched once again, and it did not reach her eyes. "I'm through playing and being played. What do you say?"

He was silent for a few seconds too long. "I don't have time for this," she snapped. "I have paperwork that'll keep me up all night. What's your answer?"

"Give me three days," he blurted out, and wondered if it was possible to threaten his brain with torture. Three days? Where the hell did that come from?

She seemed to look at him the same way. In fact, she regarded him as though he had just requested a pony and a plastic rocket. "Three days," she repeated, as if she'd heard wrong.

The Graverobber raised his hands, shrugging. "It's the least you can do," he told her, thinking, _what the hell can I do in three days? The whole police are at her service. They'll kill me and then do god knows what to Shilo. God, Shilo. _Mentally he had his fingers crossed, because his hands were in her view, and exhaled quite audibly when she seemed to give her assent when she cocked her head at the female guards to put away their guns.

"Three days, you meet me back here at eleven PM. And one more thing," she added, putting an elegant, manicured hand in her pocket and withdrawing a large handful of credits. "I'd like a vial. I can't take the hit now, not with work, but I have my own Z gun at home." She walked over to him, somehow maintaining a sense of grace in her walk when the exhaustion from trying so much on an empty tank was nearly unbearable. She looked up at him, her eyes wider and almost glasslike. "I'm afraid I can't pay recreationally tonight. I simply don't have the time. Next time, maybe," she said, and, without looking away from him, the always-guarded expression he had for her, the fiery blue eyes she could never break down, she took his outstretched hand, and in that one touch gave him his money and slid the vial from out of his grasp. "Until then," she said softly, for the first time allowing her weakness to trail into her voice, and walked away between her guards to a discreet-looking black car. He watched her leave before walking back to Shilo's hiding place, where she was slowly emerging from the little homemade fort of cardboard boxes and plastic crates.

"You're not going with her," she said as soon as she saw his face. It wasn't a question, or even a request; it was a direct command. "You can't. Don't." He said nothing, just watched her, fascinated; watched the girl jumbled together by raw nerves and sheer will, who wanted to save everyone. Her chin trembled and, he was stunned to see, she actually looked hurt, as though she could cry. She added, softer, vulnerable, "Please." It was as though she were sacrificing herself for a lost cause; he didn't want to see her like that.

He was amazed at her misplaced courage. Perhaps she was stupid, after all. "What, you'd rather be captured, tortured and killed so a drug dealer can save his own life?" he said, louder than he could have been, softer than if he hadn't restrained himself at the last minute. Regardless, Shilo looked as though she'd been struck. "This isn't the time to be a hero, Shilo; not for either of us."

She took a few seconds, wasn't as loud as him, but he heard her clearly. "Don't let her do that to you. You're not her slave."

He walked close enough to her that it almost made her visibly uncomfortable; she couldn't predict him. What he, what they had to do was something so obvious that he didn't want to see it, but it was all they had. He tried to phrase it in such a way that didn't frighten Shilo any more than necessary. "I'm not going with her," he said. "I wouldn't have, whether or not I was worried about you." The tone of his voice made her…tremble, somehow. It wasn't even that cold, but the unfamiliarity of the sensation created a tension in her body that even he could sense. She exhaled a rattling breath, trying to keep from getting too riled up. "I don't respond to blackmail very well." The next thought he had sounded far too weak, even sentimental, to say outright, so he had to choose his words carefully. "And she targeted you, when you never should've been involved in the first place. I don't want to be the cause of your death; not even I could do something like that."

There was something in the way she lowered her eyes at his words that almost bruised him; it seemed like she doubted her own worth, and now was not the time to change that. He needed to pull her away from that, the sinking pit. There was something far more urgent at hand. "Kid," he started, "Shilo, we can't stay. We have to get out of here."

Shilo, having just been unable to meet his eyes, stared openly up at him. "You mean…"

"Your Great Escape is a lot earlier than we thought, a lot messier planned," he put his hands around her shoulders—the contact was just as unusual for her, even alarming, as that time mere days ago when he'd kissed her—and added, "and you'll have someone running away with you." He waited for her expression to sour, waited for her to protest that he didn't have to leave Sanitarium Isle, _and especially not with _me, he imagined.

Instead, she nodded, beyond nonsense and self-pity for the time being. "Should we start packing?" she said.

There was something in Shilo that seemed wounded whenever she allowed herself the time to think, and when he could not distract her with his own antics. She had it suppressed, pushed to the back of her mind like any petty fear. It aged her beyond her years and her youthful features, and it was all he could see. "I think we need something to pack our stuff into, first," the Graverobber replied. He didn't have the time or surplus energy to entertain her, and instead led her to better scavenging grounds.

They found the back entrance of a sporting store filled with boxes of unused and out-of-style backpacks and water bottles ("All this waste over things that are never going to be stylish no matter what you do," the Graverobber muttered, his standard complaint) and could hardly believe their luck.

"I didn't know there was any use for these sort of things," Shilo had said in amazement, holding up a water purifier.

"I've never needed them, wouldn't know," the Graverobber replied, tucking two rolls of blankets under his arm, "But people spend money on these things, so it could be more than just rich people trying to fantasize about camping and hunting. Let's go back; most of what we need's in the apartment." It felt like he had been shoved into some kind of maze, unsure what turns to make or what lay at the center. It all seemed so surreal that they were leaving at all that he couldn't stand to think of the larger scope, and the best he could do was go from one small task to the other, like an ant. He certainly couldn't say any of this to Shilo, who had nothing she could bring up to tell him. They just made their way to the apartment, Shilo climbing up the fire escape, unlocking the window, and climbing into the room and the Graverobber through the lobby, where at this time, only the landlady was awake and at present.

He held out the key for her. "Thanks for letting me live these past years," he said, "but I have to go."

Joan pocketed the key wordlessly, and as the Graverobber reached for the door, she said, "I hope you don't get killed."

He smiled, never looking back, and left. That is, until he went around where Shilo had gone, climbed up the fire escape, and slid through the open window onto the mattress next to Shilo, who had been sitting, both backpacks full of the few belongings they had.

"You know," she said, "I felt a little sad the first time I saw this place, all bare like this. But it's actually a relief not having so much to carry. Shit, I even have all the books divided into the two backpacks, and there's room left over."

He grinned at her, picking up what turned out to be the heavier one. "You're welcome," he said, helped put the lighter one over her shoulders, and before climbing back out of the window, glanced once more at the room. Bereft of all his possessions, it actually looked about the same.

"How exactly do we get out of Sanitarium Isle?" Shilo asked when they were back in the alleyway.

"That's an excellent question," the Graverobber said. "This is an island, and the nearest landmass is nearly thirty miles east, so I'd say 'boat' would be the best option, provided we can find one." They headed to the sidewalk. "And east Sanitarium, the only way to _get _to the ocean to get _out_ of Sanitarium Isle, is past GeneCo headquarters, just to double our fun." He sounded coy, even rude, but in all honesty it was just to keep his own panic at bay as they headed right. Right into the belly of the beast, he could have added.

"Are you saying escape is impossible?" Shilo demanded, jogging to keep up with him and not enjoying the pace at all. "Is this your way of telling me we're doomed?"

"There's just a lot of risk involved," he said, "but impossible becomes possible easier than you might think." He stopped at a corner and peeked around, waiting for a GeneCop car with flashing lights to bypass them. "But god forbid either of us take the path of least resistance." He glanced back at Shilo, who had finally reached him, slightly pink from the exertion. "Can you trust me to keep us from getting killed?"

"What choice do I have?" she replied. It was a good enough answer for him. They started walking again, until the Graverobber spotted another flashing-light car, grabbed Shilo's hand, and _sprinted_ to the other side.

"Shit! What are_ two_ of those things doing out here?" he whispered. "They hardly ever use _one_." They remained silent, both trying to quiet the sounds of even their own pulse, and faint in the distance he could hear shouting, muffled and jumbled together by a group of people saying things that from this distance he couldn't decipher. He glanced at Shilo, whose head turned to the direction of the sound as well. The shouting became louder as the source of the noise seemed to draw closer, and he could hear people chanting—a fair amount of them, sounding something like, "We shouldn't have to pay to live" shouted on an endless loop, more impassioned each time.

"Let's go," he muttered, and they kept going, and were almost far enough away to ignore the sound of distant gunfire and the responding screams. He, well, _he'd _been desensitized to street violence long ago, just another part of his job requirements, but beside him Shilo's breath hitched and he saw her reach her hand out to grip the wall, eyes shut, trying to block out everything that the sound of a gun now meant to her. She saw one gun in particular, and she looked paralyzed, frozen to the spot like the only escape was to wait for these guns to come to _her_. He felt sorry for her, yes, but they had no time for this, none, and he was not above tossing her over his shoulder carrying her to the eastern shore, if it came to that. He guided his arm around her back and pulled her away from the wall, going forward and forcing her to walk again. She didn't try to stop after that, but when she heard a second round of guns, softer but no less recognizable, she copied his movement, taking her arm around his waist, the side of her face buried into his shoulder, waiting for him to explain to her what the hell was going on.

As if she'd asked him, he said, "Not now. We're close." There were sirens going on, and what seemed like every GeneCop in miles scrambling past their point in the shadows. Getting past them unnoticed for now was impossible, but with all the diversions farther behind them, getting to the shore would be much easier than he'd expected. _Thanks, dead rioting guys_.

Creeping from shadow to shadow, neither was caught in the journey to the edge of Sanitarium Isle, and it wasn't quite light enough for people in houses to make out the two figures skidding down the slope to a fishing dock.

The Graverobber evaluated every boat in one or two words; most of them were too large, a few too small and powered by nothing but a pair of oars, until he stopped in front of one, and after finally catching up to him, heard him say, "Perfect!"

She followed his gaze and was duly impressed. It was small and efficient enough to carry fewer than five people and had had what looked like a working engine and motor, but was worried that maybe he was forgetting something very important.

"We don't have the keys," she told him.

He turned around and looked at her incredulously. "Who do you think you're dealing with, woman?" he said, and climbed onto the boat. "Did you think I never learned to hotwire a vehicle?"

"Do you know how to steer one?" Shilo asked as he helped her up. She didn't like his responding grin. Not at all.

"No, but it shouldn't be too hard. I'm a quick study." He leaned over, pulled a knife out of his satchel, and cut the rope that held them to the dock. "We just need to get out of here soon. Those fishermen have an early schedule, or so I hear." She watched him go to the end of the boat, open the top to something, and fiddle around for a good couple of minutes, until sure enough, the boat came to life. She didn't even have to see him to know he was grinning as he put the top back on.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said, pleased with his work, and headed to the wheel. "Now all we have to do is steer this baby to—"

Whatever he'd done to back the boat away from the dock, he'd rammed instead into the wooden platform and smashed it up fairly well for a small boat like this. "SHIT!" _Now you've done it. _People would undoubtedly hear that commotion, and he almost fumbled the shift and the wheel, finally saw the reverse, and scooted the boat away before turning it around and following what the boat's compass said "East" before looking over at Shilo. "You okay, kid?"

She was sitting, sprawled at the side and staring back at him with the hugest eyes he'd ever seen, gripping onto the net beside her with all her strength. He didn't hold back his responding laugh, nor did she seem relaxed enough to get indignant as he drove the boat towards the direction of the rising sun.


	5. Chapter 5

I do not own Repo! the Genetic Opera. It belongs to its magnificent creators, Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

Thank you for all positive feedback, and I'm glad at least one person got the "Serenity" reference.. If I could, I'd put Mal and the Graverobber in a chapter together and as for storyline or action, I think it would be obvious to put them in a secluded mausoleum with their clothes torn to….I think that's enough.

Oh, and by the way, Luigi's going to look like a real prick in this chapter. Just a warning to all you fangirls and boys that like to romanticize him. In fact, he only gets worse from here…much, much worse. Also, if you are a raging Largocest shipper, you too will be disappointed, because there isn't any in this story. And yes, this chapter is shorter than usual, because I figured people might get tired of having to read 5,000 word chapters…though I've always enjoyed them my self…ah, well.

Chapter 5

Shilo was frozen for nearly five minutes, terrified that perhaps the boat would tip over, another consequence of the Graverobber's carelessness. When she regained her voice, she took full advantage of yelling at him as, grinning; he steered without once looking back at her. It would probably get old, but for now there was nothing more entertaining than ruffling Shilo, especially with her chatting at him with the speed and pitch of a squirrel.

"I bet you_ like_ scaring me," she said. "No, wait, of course you do. I _know _you do."

"Believe me," he said, "If you had any idea how funny you are when you get like this, you'd do the same thing." She was silent; probably fantasizing about kicking him in the crotch, and too worried that he'd lose control of the boat if she did.

"You're the worst travel partner in the world," she told him. He could practically _hear _the pout, her folded arms, and the stink eye she had fixed at his back.

"Come now," he said, fully enjoying himself, "I got us out of here, didn't I? If you're worried about anyone chasing us, we can speed up. At least we're off that fucking island, eh?"

"Did you see the way she was looking at you?" Shilo said, trying to stand. She stumbled several times and nearly fell back flat on her ass, now watching how the Graverobber could both stand and steer so easily, and gripped the side of the boat to steady herself. As she scooted up along the boat, she reached his side. "She treated you like some filthy habit. You're big. You're scary. At least you're supposed to be. How can you let her step all over you like that?"

Now she'd gone too far.

The Graverobber started laughing at her, not as much because he was amused that he was incredulous, even angry. She almost started back at his intensity, at his knuckles tight around the steering wheel turning, if that was possible, even whiter. "Okay, first of all, I didn't 'let her step all over me'" he said, glancing at her. There was no real humor in his face, in spite of what could have been a smile were he not so insulted. This little bit had no idea… "Second, she threatened both of our lives, and you _know _that they weren't empty promises. She can and wants to kill you, so just forgive me if I didn't feel like playing daredevil over something like that. Third, what you're talking about isn't bravery; it's stupidity. Anyone who starts up at the smallest offense is going to get himself killed, and you know what? The poor schmuck deserves it." He fought to keep his voice down to a conversational level. _And pretending I deserve to be treated like royalty isn't the same as saying thank you … _"And really, 'supposed to?' I've always been told that I'm _supposed _to be an upstanding citizen of the law, and I've never cared for that expectation, either. I'm not a lion, for fuck sake.

"And as for filthy habit…" he clenched his jaw, stopped, grinned what was so far from a smile even though it took that shape. He was not overtly angry with Shilo anymore, especially now that intimidated; she had shrunk away from him. "That would pretty much describe what I am for her."

"Don't…" Shilo fell silent when he turned and gave her a look that she could not articulate, but understood he was in no mood for her to contradict him, even if she were only trying to make him feel like more of a human being.

"You've seen us. You have to know what she and I are."

"I know you don't like her."

"Not in the least. And she _hates _me, but there's something about our combination that's…toxic, and intoxi_cating_."

Shilo started to inch further towards him. "So why do you sleep with her? I know that's what you meant, but what on earth is so attractive to you?" She added, almost hesitant, "Do you think she's pretty?"

He stared ahead, still tense as all hell, trying to articulate what made poison taste so good, what made someone so pathetic seem so divine. "I don't think she's as pretty as everyone makes her out to be. Her body is like an ad; she shows off what people can now buy. It's the idea of taking someone like her, this rich, conceited girl with all the worldly material goods to satisfy thousands, and finding out she's willing to do anything, even sink down to my level. Because she wants something that I have. There's something so satisfying in that."

"Is it better than…you know, sleeping with someone you always like? Someone who's not after you for your Zydrate?" The question seemed so out of left field, so unexpected from someone like her that he turned and stared at her. The apples of her cheeks started to go pink, most likely from prudish shame, and she averted her eyes. He laughed a little and, for the second time within the last few minutes, had no idea what was so funny.

"I can't remember the last time I slept with someone that I really liked," he said. "And I'm not sure I've ever done it with anyone who liked me. It's an unwritten part of the job description: relationships are impossible, especially if you're already hard to put up with. What's different with Amber Sweet is that while not trying to hide any of that disdain, she willingly and readily turns herself into a two-dollar whore," he snorted, "as though it's a kind of role she likes to play, like it's some fetish. I never got to ask her, but I think she finds it exciting, makes her feel adventurous, somehow."

"Really?" Shilo furrowed her brow. Throughout his speech, the look of disappointment she had in him increased. It was as though she'd expected him to be some kind of romantic, but hadn't she gotten the idea the first time she'd ever seen him in that alley? He ignored the look as best as he could.

"Someone with so much to lose likes to gamble it all every once in a while," the Graverobber said. "But she knew that before her father died, he would have been the one to take the fall, not her."

Shilo shook her head slowly, amazed. "Why would you want to be with someone as disgusting as her?" she said softly.

He was silent for close to ten seconds. She'd been about to ask him again when he said, "Because we bring out the worst in each other, and it's an almost narcotic feeling until the regret and the resentment settle in."

Now she was at a loss for words, it seemed, and he realized that to someone with no notions of sex, someone with such a clean, sweet heart, that everything he'd said was appalling. "I shouldn't have said so much," he muttered, not looking at her. It was a little while later that, he couldn't measure the time frame, he heard her say something that surprised him so much he was positive he'd misheard her. "Pardon?" he said.

She could keep the warm from rising in her cheeks. "I said…you're…worth a dozen of her."

"Am I?"

He didn't seem to be honestly asking her; he seemed to be asking, _do you know insanity when it comes out your own mouth? _"You're saying this to a man who goes into cemeteries, commits what is probably the modern equivalent of stealing the pennies off a dead man's eyes so he can sell those pennies to people too fucked up to be able to understand the consequences, but I do. I know what I am, I know what I do, and what I do is feed people's pain. You really think that such a person is worthwhile?" He saw her fumble; nearly retract what she'd said, as though she understood what he meant, and regretted having thought any different of him.

Instead, she said, so quietly he didn't want to crush the words and the hope to which she'd attached it again, "It's just the way I see you."

He sighed, not having much of an answer for that. "There's a reason people like me and Amber Sweet stick together," he said.

"She's gone now," Shilo said. "And if it's just wilderness where we land, you won't be selling to anyone." She got him to meet her eyes; he'd never really noticed the flecks of gold in those near-obsidian irises. She was more sure of herself, even in the face of doubt, that he would want to tear down. "Now if you excuse me, I'll be sitting down. I'm feeling nauseous and light-headed."

"Do you think that has to do with our conversation?" the Graverobber said, and proceeded to steer with one hand.

"It just might."

_"What do you mean, you've 'got the Shilo problem under control?'"_ Luigi stood before his kid sister at her desk, bearing down on its surface. "We haven't seen her anywhere, and now all the fucking townspeople have their pitchforks to rally together for her. We're not…fucking…_under control._"

She hadn't even flinched as he'd shouted at her, not even with a spray of saliva flying onto a repossession approval she'd just signed. "I know who's been keeping her safe," she said. "And it turns out she's not as innocent as you thought." She let those words sink in, and enjoyed the look on his face as he straightened up.

"Naw…that can't be right," he said, looking at her sideways. "She'd never been out of the house until Dad got her out." He had, in sharp contrast, been confident that what their father had said as he denounced all three of his children in front of a gaping audience had been a hallucination brought upon by his tragic illness, and if he had his doubts, he didn't reveal them. In any case, he had no problem talking about him, especially not in past tense, since he had waited for the old man to die since he was in his teens. "Her precious daddy was the only company she ever had."

Amber Sweet leaned forward. "Apparently not," she said. "I saw her, the night before the Opera, very, very close to a drug dealer."

Luigi tilted his head at her. "And by that I assume this was…_your dealer."_ He grinned down at her, glad to see her resentment. "You're the pot calling the kettle black, you know that?"

"It's more than you think, shitwad." Luigi's smile faded, and before he could come up with a more graphic insult or, better yet, impale her with her own scissors, she said, "I have witnesses, a GeneCo witness in particular, that say this man, this dealer has brought Shilo Wallace along with him to work. One of my favorite employees, someone who has been loyal to me from when I was a kid, says that she saw this dealer take the Wallace girl home with him the night after the Opera. I have three other sources that claim to have seen the two of them kissing. You know what that means, Luigi."

He seemed frozen for a second, incredulous, and when he was convinced, banged his fist on the desk, glowering down at the wooden top. "Damn. Was gonna get me some virgin ass, too," he said. His disappointment lasted a few seconds more than she would have expected before he brought his head back up. "So where do we find them?"

She exhaled. "We don't, yet."

"_WHAT_?" He leaned in. "You got me up at six in the morning to tell me that the little Wallace cunt is slumming with a dealer and _we can't get to her_?" from the way his hands were clenched at the edges, it was clear the man had half a mind to flip over her desk. "What good _are _you?"

"More than you think, _Louie._" Amber Sweet watched him turn impossibly redder, a vein in his forehead about to burst and held up a hand to calm him back down. "I've found a way to bring her to us. Through the dealer." He narrowed his eyes. "Does Pavi know about this?" he asked.

She shrugged and threw her hands up in the air. "I invited him to come down, but he hasn't shown up yet. I suppose we'll have to tell him later. He's not important. What _is_ important is that this girl needs him, and if he has to…" she waved her hand "go away, she _will _suffer, and we will find her when she has no protector and no lover."

Luigi leaned in, enjoying this. "You're gonna kill the man?" he said eagerly, as if to say, _I'll do it for you, if you like._

She didn't like that look. Much as she hated her dealer, her brother's enthusiasm was even worse. "I will if he doesn't do as I ask. I threatened him here with the girl." At his expression she said, "No, he isn't here in the building right now. I've given him three days to come here alone. If he doesn't, we find him, we take him, and I do whatever the hell I want with him; but before that last part happens, we find the girl." Luigi's smile was the most disgusting she had ever seen. It made her reel back from what she had said to him, to the Graverobber. Seeing her cruelty on his features gave the full strength of what she was doing, and it was enough to make her physically ill. She wanted her vial, tucked in the drawer beside her desk. She wanted to sleep so she wouldn't have to deal with this or with them.

"I'm starting to like this," he said. "I'd like to have him tied down, just to watch what we do to her."

She hated him so much.

_"How are you doing back there, Kid?"_

Shilo groaned. "Not so great, actually. My belly's shifting around like the water." He glanced behind him to see her massage her stomach. "How much further do we have to go?"

"We've been going about half an hour, thirty-five minutes or thereabouts, so I'd say…another forty-five. We're going a decent enough speed for it." When she groaned again, he said, "Is it really that bad? You were fine a little over twenty minutes ago."

"I'm just thinking about having to wait it out and let the whole thing get worse." She shifted amidst the nets. "I'm just sorry it had to happen now."

"So am I. I'm not going to stop the boat, but I'm sorry." He suddenly grinned, wide and close to feral. "Can you imagine being on land, a different land _mass_ than any you've ever known? I bet half the people in Sanitarium Isle never even thought of it." If it annoyed Shilo enough to take her mind off the discomfort, he was certainly not averse to taking it a step further. "We're pioneers, you and I. Lewis and Clark for a new world; going east instead of West."

"Who were Lewis and Clark?"

He wasn't too surprised to hear her say that. "No history lessons for you, huh?" he said. Shilo shook her head. "All you need to know is that they discovered land masses in the old United States that no one had realized existed. Their world seemed so small and suddenly it turned out that even the little thirteen-colony mass they called a country was so much bigger. It's an interesting idea. Makes me wonder how much of it is left."

"How much of it do you think is left?" she asked.

"How much land or how many people?"

"Both."

He gave it some thought, though it really was a no-brainer what he believed. "With land, I'm sure a fair amount of it is left. Whether or not it's really worth the habitation, whether it's still so damaged by heavy industrialization, I don't know, though it can't be worse than Sanitarium Isle. In terms of population…" he tilted his head, watching the steering wheel. "I'd be surprised if there are many more people than you and me. If there is anyone else, and, really, what are the chances of that?" In an afterthought, he added, "It wouldn't be a tragedy, all things considered. If my job has taught me anything, it's to hate people."

"Even me?" Shilo said.

The Graverobber turned back at her. She looked up at him with earnest, and perhaps a degree of a tease, though only a little. "Would I have let you come home with me if I did?" he said. "No, scratch that, I might have. Would I have tried this hard to keep you out of harm's way if I did?"

She studied his features, the quirked eyebrows worked against the honesty in his question. "No," she said. "You aren't that kind."

"Not if I don't want to be, no," the Graverobber agreed. "But with you I'll make an exception."

Shilo didn't understand why this made her so happy, even with her stomach mutinying against her and her head pounding; she felt as though he'd blessed her somehow. Maybe that was why, at least on TV, good girls liked bad boys; if he was usually so obnoxious, even the slightest effort to seem decent meant so much more, although she knew that this man was making far more than a slight effort on her behalf. He was probably thinking of all the customers he'd lost, all the money he couldn't make, all the adventures that he'd have to… enjoy(?)… alongside a puny, frightened girl. Still, he wasn't complaining yet. Not even after ten minutes of complete silence, save for the sound of rippling seawater, when Shilo scrambled for the side of the boat, dry-heaving.

"Don't retch upwind; it'll fly back into your face," the Graverobber warned, and just in time, as he heard her throw up, and it sounded painful. "Shit, you _are _sick."

"You didn't believe me before?" Shilo groaned, wiping the back of her hand, "The girl who's been sick all her life?"

The next half hour was agonizing; every five or ten minutes Shilo would empty the contents of her stomach into the ocean beside her; it was more than she'd ingested in the past couple of days, and while he wasn't about to fuss over her for the time being, he was alarmed. He'd never been off land, but he was pretty sure this wasn't just seasickness, and wondered if the thought had occurred to her as well. Maybe they'd left Sanitarium Isle just long enough for the drugs to leave her body and leave it fighting for more. After all, she had been clean for days; if her withdrawal were to kick in, it would probably be now. He said, of course, none of this. Instead, he said, "Don't worry. You'll be better when we're on land. It isn't much longer. Good. Gooo-" in time for her to crawl to the side of the boat and retch.

_This will be the lousiest adventure anyone ever had_, the Graverobber thought. He'd never read Gulliver's Travels or Around the World in Eighty Days, but he was pretty sure that in neither of them was there a sick, weak woman-child to put up with. It was a bit of a challenge not building up any resentment. In any case, he wasn't the one getting sick…

"Hold on…" he squinted into the distance. "I do believe that's a land mass before us," he said loudly enough for Shilo to hear. She said nothing, was probably worried that if she opened her mouth she'd empty more than just the lining of her stomach: perhaps her entire stomach, this time. The sight of a not-very-horizontal line came closer and became more prominent, and he grinned. "Land," he said, "We're finding the lost America."


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Repo! the Genetic Opera. It belongs to Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

My apologies abound if it seems as though I'm making the Graverobber too kind and patient. He isn't one of those cliché "rough-around-the-edges-with-a-heart-of-gold" kinds of characters, so I'm very sorry if this chapter and the previous one gives that impression. I'll try to improve upon it. I'm also sorry if anyone is miffed about the time lapse between chapter five and this…I promise not to blame my busy schedule.

As always, thank you for all positive feedback and reinforcement.

Chapter Six

They drew closer, and anyone even remotely optimistic would have been devastated to see the charred blacks, browns, and grays where there had once been green. Even the sky above them, stretching further out, looked murky, and so far the only thing resembling civilization, as the Graverobber had predicted, were burned and broken-down ruins of buildings obscuring a view of the land that could have lasted for miles.

Shilo struggled to her feet and came to the front to see around him, and as he glanced over, her expression was one of despair more profound than any physical discomfort. "Oh my God," she whispered. He understood; he saw what she saw, the pure destruction and waste, the very real idea that the damage was irreparable. It was the only thing either of them said until the boat reached land and the Graverobber walked around her to turn off the motor. He couldn't think of a single thing to tell her. He couldn't comfort her, did not want to comfort her, and did not want to lay down false hopes that everything would be all right. In a relatively short life span he'd learned and relearned on a continual basis that everything was not all right; that everything was getting worse as the years progressed. All he could feel at the moment was a gnawing resentment that almost took him by surprise and a feeling of hopelessness that he had anticipated.

"Graverobber?" Shilo said, drawing closer to him. He said nothing, and his silent answer was the silencing of the motor. It wasn't enough for her, of course. "Graverobber?" she repeated.

His back to her, his voice rougher, meaner than he had expected: "What do you want me to say?" He knew she shrunk away from him, bewildered. "I told you how much we fucked things up." Immediately afterward, he felt ashamed. It wasn't fair to talk like that to her; she didn't mean to be the single most troublesome thing in his life, and she needed him now. Sighing, trying not to seem sullen, he glanced over his shoulder. "Shall we descend?" he asked. There was something so wrong with all this, and he couldn't identify what. Maybe there were a thousand things that could not be solidified into a whole group, and he would have to identify each one.Shilo bent down, picked up her backpack and took his outstretched hand.

"Lead me to land," she said, just barely able to look him in the eye, and walked with him to the edge of the boat, watched him drop over the side onto land first, and didn't understand the thing that stirred up inside of her when he looked up at her face, the unreadable blue eyes and dark lips, holding his arms out to take her in them. As with her first dumpster experience, she felt his hands wrap around her ribcage, brought hers down on the matted faux-fur on his shoulders, and felt that same airborne feeling when, for a second, he had her lifted in the air, and the same sense of deflation when she felt the weight of solid ground beneath her feet. It was a cruel reminder of how much smaller she was than him; a midget; a child, but never an equal.

Shilo held her ground steadily for about two seconds before stumbling, her knees unreliable and sent her falling against the Graverobber's chest, who wondered (out of pure maleness) for a moment if the act had been at least partially intentional, and instinctively braced one arm around her back. The other fumbled around to bring his backpack to the ground so he could sort through it. "Hold on…just breathe…" he said, bending a little to murmur in Shilo's ear, hoping she wouldn't throw up again, and slowly sank to the ground on his haunches, bringing her down with him. Wordlessly, he took one of the water containers out of the larger backpack. "Don't put your mouth on the lid," he told her, "just drink some, rinse, spit it out, and repeat." He watched her, as she obliged him, turning her head to spit in the coarse earth mixed with old stones and dust.

"Feeling any better?" he asked, not quite ready to let go of her…so long as she wasn't going to projectile vomit.

Shilo tried to breathe normally, caught between a dull pain in her stomach to replace the nausea and an even worse throbbing in her temples, and even more than that, a sudden anxiety at a man's arms around her, specifically, this particular man who seemed to turn her inside out, vex and frighten her so easily. "I don't know," she admitted, laughing as though it was forced at gunpoint, her voice breaking.

_Amazing, _the Graverobber thought. _Her withdrawal kicks in just in time for our horrible adventure. If I didn't know any better I'd say I was being punished for my sins. _It was more than just difficult to put into account that he was healthy; _she _was the one getting sick at the worst time imaginable, and _she _would be the one suffering incredible physical pain, because he knew _he'd _have no choice but to care for her every step of the way. "Are you going to throw up again?" he asked, letting her rest her face against his furry coat lapel.

"No," Shilo said. "I'm all empty. And I'm sorry. I really am, for causing all this trouble." She glanced up at him, little more than her eyes visible, hoping he'd say something forgiving, doubting he actually would.

What he came up with was somewhere in the middle. "You didn't ask for all those drugs," he said, trailing his fingertips along her scalp. And really, what option did he have? Leave her behind, and then try navigating through a wasteland for something habitable alone? He was just as lost as she; it maddened him more than having a sick girl as his travel companion, and he promised himself to keep that in mind when she'd get sicker. In any case, he was an impatient man by nature, and he wasn't about to baby her through this. "Try standing," he said, and without waiting for a protest, he slowly stood, bringing her up with him, and took a step back, holding her at arm's length.

She really did try to keep herself steady, and did fairly well, but the open space terrified her. She'd been so used to the confines of her room, and had even adjusted to the crowded city-streets, but this vast wasteland frightened—no—terrified her. It was all too much for her to take! The manageable bits of space she'd seen crumbled before her and here was something just too huge for her to comprehend. She started panting, squirming away from the Graverobber's hold, stumbling back and falling, all the oxygen molecules and heavy dust in the air crushing her lungs, and she had no idea how she managed the strength to say, "There's no end to it. It just stretches, goes on forever. Oh God. Oh God." Flat on her bottom, her seat covered in dirt and a light sheen of cold sweat across her forehead, she was certain she'd have a panic attack. She could almost hear the beep of her monitor ("Blood pressure warning!") and in a state of confusion wondered what happened to her medicine. _Just like the first time I met him_, she thought, trying to hold onto her consciousness and…

…failing.

_When Shilo woke up again, she realized she was in the air, the ground moving, several feet beneath her_.

"Am I flying?" she mumbled. Somewhere against the side of her face she felt a slight rumble as above her a man laughed, and she realized then that this man was carrying her. "Oh. _You're _flying," she said.

The man said, "I wouldn't call it flying if both feet are on the ground." The man had the deepest human voice she'd ever heard, not that she'd heard many voices, and she liked how it sounded, how the sound reverberated in his chest, against her cheek.

"I know you," Shilo said, resting her head against him, speaking into his shoulder, feeling dazed and more than a little stupid.

Regardless, the man both heard and understood what she said. "Oh, really?" he replied. "I know who you are too."

"I fainted the first time I met you," Shilo informed him. "My blood pressure spiked, and next thing I woke up in bed, my dad telling me I'd had a nightmare. It made more sense than the idea that someone like you could be real." She sounded drunk at best, but he understood every word. Burying her head against cloth, she muttered, "But you _are _real." She sighed into his collar, thinking that this was a very furry man, indeed. The cloth around his neck felt like he'd sewn a dead animal onto his coat.

"So I make your heart race?" the man said. She heard a smile in his voice, and if that wasn't enough to start her, he continued in that vein, teasing her and probably having a hell of a good time doing so. "Do I excite you? Do you feel accelerated whenever I'm nearby?"

"No-o-o-o!" she said, and would've told him off, had his arms not been wrapped around her, holding her

_like a bride_

like a swaddling baby, and if she didn't feel so comfortable. "You just wish I felt that way," she said, trying to lift her head and glare at him, but whatever strength she had had temporarily left her body, and she was stuck sounding childish and whiny in her weak protests.

She felt the laughter in his chest before she heard it from his mouth. "I think we should stop here," he said. "It looks safer. You can even see a little bit of a city this way. Look."

Twisting and squirming in his arms, Shilo turned away from the monotonous cloth of his shirt and saw parts and pieces of buildings, set up like tinker toys, parts broken off and others mostly whole, but weakened and charred. Nonetheless, it felt more crowded, felt safer though there was nothing in this world, in this broken and destroyed land that could ever be safe. She wanted to see more of it, and turned her head up at the Graverobber. "Put me down," she instructed him.

"Only if you don't fall," he said, and slowly released the arm he had tucked under her legs and she stood, feeling light-headed but her nausea had more or less passed. Well, sort of. "I didn't know you felt so strongly about me," the Graverobber said, watching her with one of those maddening half-grins.

"Don't make me throw up again," Shilo groused, more embarrassed at her open display of vulnerability than anything else, and stepped over dirt, debris, bits of sediment, and wondered what each structure could have once been. Stepping back from a particularly tall building whose ceiling must have collapsed years ago, she said, "I bet this was an office. There are all these empty window panes and everything." She glanced back at the Graverobber, who apparently hadn't stopped staring at her, his head still tilted at an angle as though silently notating her behavior. She thinned her lips, feeling exhausted even though she hadn't done a single exhausting thing since yesterday, and that had been punching the very same man in the face. She was pretty certain seasickness wasn't the only thing that made her throw up, that anxiety wasn't the only thing that made her lose consciousness. She was even more certain that he'd already made the assessment. "Graverobber," she said, "Will I get worse?"

He nodded, his smile gone. "Probably," he said. "Most likely."

"How much worse?"

He shrugged one shoulder, no real expression. "I don't know. I don't know what drugs you were on, I don't really know many other drugs than Zydrate, have never been through a drug withdrawal. But taking seventeen years of something that intense, and it's going to hurt like hell when you suddenly stop."

The bluntness of his response was something for which Shilo was both grateful and upset. The facts, so harshly put, made tears prick up at the corners of her eyes. She swiped them away, but he could see her weakness. He saw weakness so easily, and she felt utterly transparent; she felt pathetic. What an annoyance she must be! "Listen," she began, her breath coming a little easier, then constricted, unable to respond to the big man in front of her, intimidated in spite of everything he had done to prove he wasn't a villain to her. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to work up some sort of force, and said, "I don't want to be any more of a burden than I've been already. I'll try to be as independent as I can, but…" she tried to phrase it in a way that didn't make her seem like a sponge "…I might need your help."

The Graverobber raised his eyebrows, a corner of his dark mouth twitching upward, and folded his arms, looking a little indignant. "Did you think I'm stupid enough _not _to know that?" he said. "Of course you'll need my help. I hate to break it to you, kid, but if you're getting sick in the middle of fucking nowhere, you'll need a healthy person nearby. And I'm your only option, as far as either of us know." There was something resembling a smile in his features; there was something funny about this, he was sure, but it wasn't enough to merit a real smile. "Really, Shilo…" he dragged his tongue along his upper teeth, "There's nothing else. There's no money to be made, no Zydrate to be harvested, no cops to cheat death with. We're both in the middle of this fucking nowhere." He looked surreal; a mix of multiple time periods in his looks surrounded by modern ruins, she understood why he'd seemed more like a hallucination than an actual man.

He just seemed so…

Shilo tucked her lips to the inside of her mouth, embarrassed once more that she could feel so moved at all this, that she nearly wanted to cry with relief, a silly act that by now was simply out of the question. "You're handling this pretty well," she said.

"Yeah, well, it's this or have us both suffer under the Largo Spawn. If there were an easier way to get out of that trap, we would've done it."

She wondered how he could seem so unaffected, so unharmed by everything. He had scars on the exterior; reminders of the consequences he faced in his profession, but otherwise betrayed nothing. He never seemed surprised, frightened, hurt, or vulnerable in any way and she wanted to learn how he managed it. She wanted to be insensitive like him.

She said, "Thank you."

_With the sun directly above them, Shilo's energy spent and the Graverobber pretty out of it on his own behalf, they found decent shelter inside a shoddy cottage-sized building that was pretty well intact. _It was nine AM, and they were more than ready to sleep. At least, Shilo hoped that she would be tired enough not to have any dreams, nightmares or otherwise. With a very prominent and ugly bruise on his nose, the Graverobber hoped so, too.

"Did you bring any food?" Shilo asked, helping him set a thick blanket onto the bare floor. "Please tell me we aren't going to starve to death."

"I did, as a matter of fact," he replied, "but it might have to wait until we really need something."

Shilo furrowed her brow—well, sort of, thinking, _but don't we need to eat every day?_ From the Graverobber's implication, apparently not, and she grudgingly admitted that if a grown man significantly larger than her could fast for over twenty-four hours, so could she. "Could you at least tell me what we have?" she said, feeling more than a little cranky at the prospect of not eating before bed.

He sighed and reached into the confines of his backpack, saying, "Bear in mind I had to pick what was convenient and size-efficient, not what tastes the best." With that he showed her a couple sleeves of crackers, what appeared to be dried strings of meat in packages labeled "Jerky" several tiny packets of dehydrated foods, and just as Shilo was starting to turn green, surprised her with a box of something labeled "Peanut-butter bars". "Like I said," he told her, "It's not Italian or anything, but—"

"I suppose I haven't had the chance to tell you that peanut butter is my favorite food in the entire world," Shilo said.

He tilted his head at her, looking somewhere between amused and unconvinced, as though she were trying to sound overtly optimistic about their meager food selection. "Really, now?" he said as he repacked their rations and tossed the bag to the side.

"Really. I love it. I used to have it every day." She tilted her head right back, mirroring him, raising her eyebrows at exactly the same angle, and grinned. She was weary and crabby, but the smile was real. "You, sir," she said, "have done well. Let's go to sleep, I feel like I'm going to faint again." She sat down on the blanket, took off her shoes and folded up her jacket to use as a pillow, lying down on her side. All things considered, she seemed healthy at the moment. He doubted it would last even through the time she'd want to sleep, and followed her action, taking several minutes longer to completely unbuckle his boots, and lay down close to her body, her back to his chest, and when he was pretty certain she'd fallen asleep, wrapped his left arm around her body, enjoying the warmth of another person with him. He laughed quietly to himself, remembering his warning about "having to sleep spoons." He couldn't help it if they had to sleep in the same vicinity and that they both instinctively went for the nearest heat source. He certainly couldn't help if he liked how her body felt curled against his.

He was only a man, after all.

_Shilo woke up around four, not due to nightmares of her father but nightmares of suffocating, drowning, unable to take the breath to scream for help_. She woke up realizing she was drenched in sweat, hyperventilating, fearing she was going to die. Everything hurt, strained, constricted, and there wasn't a single extraneous thing causing it. She cried out as she felt some invisible man stabbed her in the abdomen above her navel, and again in her side. Where was Graverobber? This was when she needed him, godammit! She needed him _now! _ She cried louder, unable to form the proper syllables in the correct order to cry specifically for him, but she heard the familiar heavy footsteps of his boots as he came into the room.

"Shilo?" She was probably imagining it, but she could've sworn she heard actual concern in his voice. She contorted into some hideous kind of fetal position, so cold in spite of the sweat, her teeth chattering, and yet her forehead and the space behind her eyes burned, needed relief and found none. She felt half-blind but saw his boots, his legs as he knelt beside her. She felt the back of one of his hands, so gloriously cool, touch her forehead and recoil from the heat. "_Shit_. Shilo, you need to relax. Just wait one second."

She heard a rib of fabric, and not too long after felt a cool, damp swath of fabric against her forehead, coaxing her to lie on her back. "Where were you?" she demanded between the spasms that took away her breath and her strength.

"I had mor—I had to pee. Doesn't matter." She heard another rip and felt him try to wipe away the sweat that accumulated on her neck, her arms, her cheekbones. "It won't last forever."

"Distract me then," Shilo said, and whimpered, drawing her knees to her stomach, as her entire trunk felt like it was being struck all at once with dull needles. The man cast the dry cloth aside and gently made circles on her abdomen with his hand, something strangely therapeutic, and she strained, trying to ignore everything but him and the sound of his voice. She interrupted his anecdote at several points with cries of pain, but strained to block out everything but him, the man who was stuck with her, the man who hadn't hurt her yet.

"Okay…about five years ago, there was this boy—your age at the very most--who wanted to be a grave-robber, of all things. He was a customer of mine, of course, all wrong for the job, and a Zydrate-addict. The kid kept badgering me to teach him, that I 'show him the art' of all fucking things, as though robbing graves could be considered an art. One day, I decided what the hell, I may as well take him on an expedition. Showing him what it's like will cure any interest he has, and he'll go back to fantasizing about being a male model or something. You just…you just _know _the really squeamish ones, whether or not they'll admit it, and he was one of them. I told him to meet me at the cemetery at midnight the next night to see a Zydrate harvest, and he did, of course, so sure that he'd be able to take the sight and smell of a corpse, that it was all so easy for someone who'd never seen the dead.

"I opened one of those stone coffins and as soon as he saw the body and smelled the rotting, shriveling flesh, the poor kid shit his pants." He laughed, a little cruel although it really was funny in its own sick way. "And tried making a run for it, which was not quite possible considering his predicament, and never said anything about it again. Granted, it's better to be one of the squeamish types than someone who _really _likes the corpses."

"Is that you?" Shilo asked, eyes shut tight from the pain, wanting the feel of his hand and the sound of his voice more than anything.

"No," the Graverobber said. "I was what people called 'a natural'. It's not the most honorable thing in the world, being a naturally talented felon, but it works. I'm the best at what I do in Sanitarium Isle, because I don't fall into either category. No good Zydrate-dealer can."

Shilo said nothing, just tried taking deep breaths as he instructed, but it hurt so much, cracking at her ribcage, that she frequently resorted to shallow breaths. All she could think was, _will it get worse than _this? If she asked him, she had a feeling he'd tell her yes. _It gets much worse._

As for the man who had to put up with all this, he wasn't enjoying himself either. Seeing her in such an incredible amount of pain, this small, fragile girl who'd gone through so much shit already, was the worst of it; it stirred something that could very well have been compassion, or something close. He couldn't comfort her, couldn't promise her anything, because he wasn't one to lie for the sake of misplaced optimism. He just stayed with her.


	7. Chapter 7

I do not own Repo! the Genetic Opera. It belongs to its creators, gods Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich.

**If I died, it would be okay. The cliché **_**When you have your health you have everything**_** is very true. When you do not have your health, nothing else matters at all. ** (_from __Dry__ by Augusten Burroughs_)

Before I proceed with the chapter, I apologize for the lapse of time in between chapter six and this one; I have had a couple of very alarming medical emergencies, one of which involved an ambulance ride over some very, _very_ bumpy roads. Also, I need to make several things clear about how I will be writing the Largos and their family dynamics. First of all, the Largos are going to be antagonists in this story. Second, I don't see any love between any of the three of them, nor am I going to write in any incestuous content. So for those readers who like to romanticize the Largos, ("But Luigi looooved his father—and his siblings! He's just a little excitable! And of course they have sex with each other. It says so in the movie!") Stop reading immediately. It will save you the energy of flaming me later. And finally, I will not be writing Pavi's dialogue with an "-a" after every word. Now enough with the chitchat; **on with the chapter**.

Chapter Seven

_It was close to eight-thirty when Amber Sweet had all her paperwork done, or at least enough to recognize the fact that if she continued without her fix for much longer, she would drop dead and leave GeneCo in the hands of the frighteningly incompetent. _She thus set down her pen and glared at her new bodyguards –"Henchgirls"—she believed was the nickname for them—until they obeyed the silent command to get the fuck out of her office. It took a while; of course they knew what she wanted, and of course they were so used to reporting her drug-related excursions, but they learned fast. She still had the Zydrate gun—her own personal Zydrate gun—newly stashed in her bottom right-hand drawer, along with a bright blue vial that slid easily into the gun cartridge, and made a satisfying clicking noise that she'd wanted to hear for a long time. The old habit, the ease of the smooth cold gun in her hands almost undid her before she could even press it to skin, her coordination verging on panicky, and her heartbeat racing…

"Sister?" a heavily accented voice called out from the other side of the room. Amber shrieked and fumbled with the gun, almost dropping the precious thing before dropping it back into the drawer, sweating and silently wishing her brother to be run over by a train. And then by a bus. She needed her fix, godammnit, and to hell with her creepy face-stealing brother. "Sister, I have to talk to you_ right now_. It is an emergency."

"Ah," Amber, nearly at the point of hyperventilation, fumbled just as much with her words. "Pavi, 'right now' isn't a great time. I'm feeling sick. Come back in a few hours."

But no. The little cocksucker invited himself in anyway—what the fuck? Hadn't her guards remembered to lock the fucking door?—and leaned against the doorframe, watching her with her own face, her own lips painted red and rouge applied to her own cheekbones. He dragged out the words, adding as much of an edge to his voice as possible—which was to say, not very much of one at all—"Our brother told me about Shilo Wallace and her lover."

Jesus Fucking Christ. "So you know that there's nothing to talk about for another three days. Really, Pavi, I think you should go—"

He steamrolled right over her, coming closer, gesticulating in what was probably the stereotypical manner of the-a old-a cont-a-ree, waving his arm dismissively. "Do what you want with the man," he said with an air of contempt. "He's your pet; none of my affair. This is about the girl." _Of course it was about the girl. _Everything_ for Pavi was about girls, if it wasn't about his looks or about his inheritance. _As Amber Sweet drummed her fingertips on her desk, trying her best not to strangle Pavi in a fit of rage and withdrawal-induced panic, he truly surprised her for the first time. "Sister, do you remember Marni?"

Amber shrugged, trying to keep the conversation as quick as possible, as the drawer containing her Zydrate gun called to her, burned through the rest of the desk, and she couldn't ignore it for much longer. When her brother just glared at her—she could see the stink eye right through his mask—she said, grudgingly, "Yeah, I guess. Pretty. A real flirt; made all the men go crazy."

Slowly, laughing softly to himself, Pavi nodded. "You have no idea," he said. It could have been her imagination, but he sounded almost mournful, as though this were not one of Father's old flames but his own lost love, and as he tilted his head back in reminiscence, she seriously considered making gagging noises just so he would snap out of his pathetic bout of self-pity. "She died when I was fifteen. I never once got to touch her. Not once; this sexy, magnificent woman that I just adored. And for that reason I've never gotten over her. All these years seeing Marni's face in my dreams and thinking about everything I missed. Now along comes pretty little Shilo Wallace, who looks _just like her_…" he stopped, sort of pushed his body away from his sister's desk, and walked over to the other side of the room.

"You know what I'm trying to tell you," he added, eternities later, his voice quieter than she'd heard it in a long time; his accent almost slipped in the process. "You _know,_" he said, glancing over at her, silently daring her to say otherwise.

Of course she knew, and she would have preferred anything, _anything, _to what Pavi requested of her, but she shouldn't have been surprised. Her middle brother knew just where to hurt the most; it was a gift that he possessed. He had her face to prove it. He always had to make the most impossible of demands. They suffered a few moments in silence. Pavi stood, almost shoving at the desk and walked to the other side of the room, facing away from her. He didn't have much patience left but enough to outlast _her_, his gloved hand sliding over the smooth finish of the arm of a new oak loveseat. Whatever threats, whatever variations of, "Get the hell out of my office" would not protect her for long. Her sweat, her desperation, her need for her precious drug won out. At last she told her brother, albeit unable to look at him, what he wanted to hear.

"I'll make sure you get Shilo's face, Pavi."

"_Graverobber?"_

Shilo's skin looked gray and waxy, as though it were about to slide off her face. She truly was a pitiful sight. Drowning in Graverobber's coat, her bald little head poked out as, shivering, she whimpered at him. "Please don't go," she said. "I'll understand if you want to, but please…don't." She lilted at the last word, made it sound more like a question.

Lying on the floor with her, his hand on her stomach, the Graverobber said, "I'm not going anywhere." He felt proud of the air of confidence in his voice, the sense of, _if I'm not panicking, so neither should you. _He wasn't sure if she would see through it, but in her state of health, he was pretty certain she would believe_ anything _positive that he told her, especially since he gave nothing away, at least not for free.

In response Shilo curled into him, almost clinging to whatever contact he allowed, and groaned. For now he didn't see it as anything more but desperation; in her right mind she wouldn't have dreamed of latching on to him like this. In his right mind he would've taken advantage of the moment to make a smarmy little innuendo, just to see her blush and act indignant, but she wouldn't have had the strength anyway. It took her several minutes to ask, "Have you ever seen any of your customers like this?" She was almost able to follow this up with a strangled-sounding laugh.

He almost laughed back. Someone staying in his company _without _the intent of buying drugs from him? "A person doesn't decide to hang around their dealer while going through withdrawal." All he'd ever seen even remotely like this was a few customers here and there who wanted to quit for financial reasons or, on very rare occasions, shame, and seeing them crawl to him with just enough money for a hit to lessen their misery. He'd seen withdrawal. He'd never seen a person really quit a drug and face its full consequences. He'd never had to get involved with anything even remotely like this; no one expected as much from a drug dealer. Little Shilo Wallace bundled up in his coat, having only the likes of him for her company and protection. Fuck. He was sure the pair of them would make one hell of a TV sitcom, so far apart and yet so similar…somehow. He'd sort out the logistics later. From early on he couldn't quite tell if they were exact opposites or, given time, identical except in physical manifestations. They were both familiar with drugs, at least.

He was as patient as he knew how to be. He waited, staying in the room with her, for an hour. In the space of just that hour, she went from bad to worse, and he didn't have a single fucking idea what to do, except to walk away, just for a while. He'd be back. She'd be fine. He could convince himself of anything, and probably her as well. As he stood and made his way to the door, he heard her call out, mewl out, whimper in a tone so pained and pathetic he couldn't _not _stop at the doorframe, "Graverobber?"

He didn't want to look back at her. He didn't want to be guilt-ridden. He wouldn't stand for it.

But she was just so _small_, so waiflike, probably shrunken unnaturally by a lifetime by Dearest Daddy's Drugs.

Glancing behind him, he flashed her what he would call one of his smoothest grins, not quite frightening, but more than a hint of slick and smarmy and possibly an unnamed dangerous quality, his lips closed. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll be back soon." For a purely Graverobber effect, he added, "You might not even miss me too much", and left before she could protest. He knew she had no choice but to trust him; she had no one in this forsaken, shitty wasteland but him. He shook his head at his ability to find this at least a little funny as he stepped back out into the decay. He, the Big Bad Furry Necromerchant was the only hope for Sanitarium Isle's newest symbol for goodness in the world. He was in charge of a girl's health, when before he'd only been responsible for her education in lowering her standards of living for the purpose of survival.

By some horrible twist of fate, she now depended on him. He could hardly imagine how it would help Shilo's case at all. She didn't need him; she needed a goddamn hospital, and it was a _very_ small comfort knowing that she wouldn't have been able to get to one regardless.

He walked through debris and kicked pebbles of gravel here and there, disgusted with himself for reasons he could not articulate even in the privacy of his own mind. The sky here wasn't any closer to blue than it had been in Sanitarium Isle, nor any foliage visible—not that he had expected it to be otherwise. He felt like he and Shilo had made a suicide pact by doing this, and the lack of power infuriated him. He considered the chances of being able to go back, if after a month or so; in any case, what were the chances of finding anything to survive upon here? Were they just going to die anyway, after going to these lengths to escape death? What the hell were they _doing _out here? He exhaled, head falling back as he decided to check out a few of the nearer buildings—ones that hadn't collapsed or weren't in the immediate danger of caving in, but as far as he felt comfortable going at the moment, there was nothing better than the pitiful dwelling where Shilo now suffered.

The sun was headed west; he didn't know or really care what time it was. He just wanted to be able to step back and detach himself as a world-weary performance artist, as he always had before. Instead, he glanced back at the broken, often-missing windows of what might have once been houses, having had no success looking for something that might contain remains of furniture and decided that he shouldn't be frightening Shilo any more. He headed back to their dilapidated old building, and it was almost painful to see how grateful, how _relieved _she looked to see him. He saw the chafed openings of skin where fabric ended around her neck and wrists were starting to blister.

Wordlessly, he slid to the floor beside her, took one of her dainty, clammy white hands and waited with dread for the worst to come.

"_Dad?"_

The Graverobber's eyes flew open and he saw Shilo scuttle on weak limbs with the grace of a lame crab, almost blind out of need and the cold sweat trailing in beads down her forehead and into her eyes; the blisters around her neck and wrists were nothing compared to the hives that marred her porcelain skin. She stared wantonly at nothing, reached out her hand to air, and choked back a loud sob as she croaked, "Dad! Dad, don't! I…"

The Graverobber reached for her and started to say, "Shilo, your dad isn't here. Your dad is…" he held off on saying "dead" for the moment, held on to it just in case whatever spell she was under got any worse; part of him was certain, though, that she wouldn't hear him anyway. He wanted to pull her back, remembered the bruise (still tender at the slightest contact) on the bridge of his nose, and decided it would be a lousy idea. He could wait for worse before touching her, as well.

Her breathing wasn't just ragged; she wasn't just trembling; she was a fucking mess, and the worst wasn't as far away as he'd wanted to think. He watched her shudder violently as she stared at nothing, unsure what the fucking hell to do as she told the space of air that he didn't have to be a monster. "You're not…not a mo-onster!" she cried; she choked and fumbled on her words, putting so much effort in addressing the air in front of her, seeing her father so clearly, reaching out her hand to touch the oxygen molecules that had no weight or substance against her hand. Still, she saw her father. Still she wept and barely had the strength.

He'd heard of something like this a long time ago; he'd heard about how with some drugs—and usually with booze—that late-stage addicts could start to hallucinate, either from overdose or withdrawal. DT's, or a similar-sounding acronym. Once people had these "DT's", it was usually either hospitalization or death. Or a very small dose of the substance to ease the process of withdrawal. Without permission from the rest of his brain, part of him thought about all the vials of Zydrate, both in his satchel and on his person.

_No, _said the oft-ignored Common Sense, _it might be a toxic combination. Even if it isn't, you might get her addicted. It only takes one hit to get addicted. You don't want Pretty Little Shilo Wallace to become a Zydrate addict, do you? _

Yeah, but he was desperate. Not everyone who used Zydrate became addicted; those who were in so much pain prior to organ transplants were usually satisfied enough with their new health. Shilo was in what he thought was called a "critical situation."

_You fucking lush. She's had more than enough drug dependency in her lifetime. In several. She shouldn't have to worry about another drug leaving her body. _

He went to the satchel, took out one of Shilo's shirts—she had two others in the bag, this one she could stand to lose—a container of water, and their sorry-ass little collection of medical supplies. He knelt down next to Shilo.

He didn't know whether or not Shilo realized he was with her until, sobbing, she said, "He's gone. He left again."

"I know," the Graverobber said, and pulled her into his arms, trying to still the shuddering movements of her frail body.

"No, _no_." Her voice was muffled against his chest, against which she tried to stop her tears. "He didn't listen. He didn't listen to me."

_Goddamn it, your Dad_ _is _dead. He wiped the sweat away with her rolled-up shirt, and he pulled her in closer. Her heart was hammering in her chest, threatening to break out of her chest cavity, threatening to burst. _Your Dad wouldn't want to torture you like this._

_Time crawled by, trudging as if underwater into night_. He got up once to take a piss, and when he came back Shilo looked up, saw him, and screamed.

"What?" he demanded, glancing behind him, and it dawned on him that maybe her hallucinations could manifest around something already physical and visible. He already looked a little scary to her; it wouldn't take much for her imagination to turn him into a monster, something that feasted on little girls's bones and hid under beds until parents gave up searching before descending on unsuspecting children to tear them limb from limb.

"Please don't hurt me!" Shilo screamed; Shilo croaked, her voice mostly spent. She tried to scramble back with every step he took in her direction and fell, sobbing, as he continued to advance.

He knelt down to her level, and took her slowly by the shoulders—she wasn't strong enough to throw in a good punch at the moment—and he could feel her pulse against her pale stalk neck as he brushed his fingertips along its delicate contours, and it beat like a mouse's, or a hummingbird's, but too fast for a human, and it startled him, worried him. Her shaking was closer to convulsions, her frail body taking more than it could bear. He remained still long enough for her to whimper, a sound of defeat, and, unsure what in hell to do, said, "sshhhh" as he pulled her against him. If she was going to die, he knew she shouldn't die alone. He vaguely heard her muffled weeping against his neck, her sudden incapability to form coherent words as she let the beast take her into his arms.

He was pretty certain it had no practical use of calming her, but he said anyway, close to the shell of her ear, "I'm not going to hurt you. A lot of people say that, but I actually mean it." It took a while, but her pulse slowed to alarming, down from terrifying, as she found herself in between conscious and unconscious, leaving the Graverobber fully awake. It really was quite the inconvenience.

_At one point when the Graverobber was feeling quite tired himself, he barely registered that Shilo had said something to him_.

He leaned in close to hear her better and all but tore off his coat from Shilo's body when she mumbled something, semi-conscious, that he made out as: "gonna…pee…" and pulled her in the direction of the outside entrance, thanking the powers that be that she had a change of pants and underpants in their satchel once—if—she got better, and he was willing to be optimistic in this case. He was willing to do a lot, really, but no way in hell was he going to change her. He wasn't a fucking nanny.

Minutes felt like hours. Hours were painful.

A couple of hours later, too exhausted and pained by other things to care about her soiled pants, Shilo glanced up over Graverobber's shoulder and gave a weak, trembling smile, sliding her hand up over his shoulder to point behind him.

"_Brachypelma smithi," _she whispered, bringing her head down, exhausted by the effort. Into his neck she murmured, "Big hairy tarantulas."

The Graverobber glanced behind him, saw nothing, and realized this was another of her hallucinations. The first even vaguely pleasant one for Shilo, and it was tarantulas. He grinned, and muttered back, "Hey, are you talking about me or the spiders?" only to find that she had passed out again. He tried to look on the bright side; she hadn't gone in to screaming bloody murder like any other girl would have upon seeing spiders.

_He wasn't sure exactly when the worst passed. Later, Shilo would only remember the pain, and they both preferred it that way. _The next morning she was still trembling, still sweating, but she wasn't hallucinating. She was physically capable of sitting up on her own, putting Neosporin on her blisters, changing her soiled pants after (and with the strength to tell Graverobber he _better _not look at her naked bottom half) cleaning the dirtiest parts of her body with an antibacterial solution and the cleanest parts of the shirt Graverobber had used as a rag, leaving one clean strip separate so that when, exhausted but in control of her own body, she could wrap the cloth around her eyes and lie down for some real sleep. Some of her hives cracked and bled; a few turned into pink, ropelike welts but that was okay for now, as long as no new abrasions marred her skin she didn't mind.

He didn't want her to know how surprised he was that she was still alive; no one whose heart beat that fast, who hallucinated about dead assassins and enormous spiders, no one who lost control of their bladders all within the same several hours could have survived, but she did. The tiny little thing who had lived like Rapunzel, locked in a proverbial tower all her life, had survived.

"I'm going to use the facilities. And by facilities I mean the space behind this little shoebox of a building or whatever the hell this is," the Graverobber said.

Shilo grunted an assent, dozing off as opposed to losing consciousness, and before he was out of the doorframe and before she was really asleep she said, "Thank you so much, Graverobber."

He deserved more than a fucking thank you. He'd given up his own sleep to make sure she didn't die, had held her as her sweat dampened him and brought heat and chills to his own skin. He'd actually worried about her, a far from easy feat. He deserved an award.

He grinned at her over his shoulder, not caring that she couldn't see it, and said, "All right."

She wasn't in the clear. He wasn't too stupidly optimistic to believe that. But if she could live through this…

He shook his head and stepped out.


End file.
